


Water

by DixieWilliams



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Youtube RPF
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Other, Swearing, Threesome - F/M/M, don't stop at this one if you don't want to see your faves in a Gordian knot, google what a Gordian knot is, if you don't know now you know, literally only Louise Pentland would have inspired me to write this, she is the goddess we deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:36:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 33,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7169441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieWilliams/pseuds/DixieWilliams





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m joking, of course,” Dan swallowed the sake quickly, grimacing as it soured on the way down, and Louise swallowed the last of her tuna. “Unless you’re not joking. Then I’m dead serious.”

He smiled wanly at her as she rose, wiped her mouth, and tossed her napkin to the table. “I’m off to the loo,” Louise informed him, and brushed his arm with her free hand as she shifted her purse. Her bright green eyes quirked at him. “Try not to proposition any other unsuspecting young lady while I’m gone.”

As she walked away, Louise glanced back at him. Dan’s shoulders visibly slumped. He ran a hand through his hair and then squeezed his neck, clipped nails brushing lightly through the hair on the nape. Louise wondered why he was being so jumpy today. She was so focused on him, that, at the last minute, as she turned to walk around the corner, she bumped directly into Phil. 

“Oof!” Phil startled. Louise felt her dress flounce back and forth from the effort of knocking herself away from him. Looking up at his wince, Louise grinned and thought to herself, _maybe ask Phil what Dan’s on about?_ Phil hesitantly tilted his head and slowly smiled at her. Louise nodded her head toward the toilets. Phil motioned her around, silently moving away, and Louise tilted her handbag down as she slipped around him. Louise was aware of his smell, the slightly spicy tang of male, and she looked down again, murmuring that she’d back in a moment.

When Louise looked back as she pushed open the door, Phil was striding confidently, gliding across the floor of the restaurant with both elbows winging side to side. Just before she closed the door on him, she saw the waiter walk around the table opposite their table with a dish tray hoisted to one shoulder. Louise closed the door. There was an unmistakable sound of glass tinkling and then a loud thump, followed by what sounded like several chairs tipping over and hitting the floor. Louise leaned against the stall and smiled to herself as Phil’s deep voice murmured quietly in the other room.

She used the toilet. After washing her hands at the sink, Louise glanced up at herself and used the white paper towel to get some of the lipstick off her teeth. Louise stopped in the middle of swiping and realized that this was probably the reason that Dan had joked with her. Was Dan making fun of her? Had he seen the green sushi roll piece clinging to her front teeth, and then decided that it was the perfect way to tease her? Louise’s hand began moving again. Really, bringing up the threesome idea from their last collab had been the perfect way to remind her that she was still alone in the world. Since Matt and she had broken up, she’d dated occasionally. Now Louise, pretty lady, was reduced to gaudy sex jokes with friends. 

Louise sighed and smiled at herself hesitantly in the mirror. It was sometimes too much to be someone’s ex-wife, someone’s mother, someone’s daughter. She was a mum, a former wife, a beloved daughter, a good friend. Dan’s teasing had reminded her how long it had been since she’d seen herself as a lustful creature. Even Phil’s faint scent had caused her senses to reel in the tiny hallway of the Japanese restaurant. She shook her head, smoothed the hair at her forehead, and avoided her own gaze in the mirror.

When she walked back to the table, Louise noticed that Phil and Dan were sitting a bit farther apart. Dan’s shoulders were still slumped. He was staring up at Phil from beneath a bowed head, and as she closed the distance over Phil’s right shoulder, she heard Phil hiss toward Dan, “No wonder she’s confused. Everything’s not a bloody _joke_!!” 

When he sensed she was there, Phil snapped his mouth shut and raised his bum slightly as Louise took her seat again. She waved his brief gesture away as Dan did the same. Louise folded the napkin back into her lap and studied the dessert delivered -- small sugar cookies with lemon spices on top -- and selecting one, Louise asked him,”What’s not a joke?”

They glanced at each other as Louise chewed a bit. Dan’s ears reddened slightly. Neither of them spoke. Phil poked at his sushi with his fork. Louise frowned at them, glanced back and forth, and shook her head. She knew that they were not serious about this idea, just a fun thing to bring up to a female friend.

The rest of the meal was stilted. Louise smiled and tried to make some small talk but each time her efforts were met with only drawn smiles and stern glances from one man to the other. Louise picked apart her cookies as Phil finished his meal and took a cup of coffee instead of cookies. Dan refused both. Louise watched them both warily, prattling on about the latest Gleam endeavor -- a challenge to the U.S. Playlist event -- and then about her sister, her dad, the latest goings-on in Darcy’s life. Nothing she said elicited any great reaction.

The bill was brought, and Phil reached into his pocket, placing too much on the table. Louise snorted. “I’m not letting you pay for this one, boys,” she said, digging through her purse. “I’m a modern woman and this is not a date.”

Phil tapped two fingers on the table. 

Louise frowned up at him as Dan chucked a few notes on the table as well. She resolutely placed her own thirty quid over the growing stash, and tilted her head at Phil. “What are you on about? You’re as confusing as Dan.”

Dan reddened and stuttered, “Nothing, Louise--” 

Phil interrupted him. “You know your comment about the coat threesome from your birthday?” asked Phil boldly. Louise nodded quickly as Dan hunched into his chair and looked about for the waiter. “Well,” Phil leaned back a bit in the chair, “if you’re ever serious about it, ring us.” 

That statement, so foreign to her ears, startled Louise. She stared at him. Dan continued to look around like a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Louise opened her mouth and then shut it with a click. It was -- _was Phil serious?_

Only when he took a shuddering breath and wiped his mouth one last time, looking over at Dan and then back at her, did Louise realize how nervous he was. Phil quietly declared, “If you’re ever in the mood.. Dan and I would-- would love to show you a great time.” Just as soon as the words were out, Louise raised an eyebrow and Phil’s face crumpled into a terrified expression. “Did that sound cheesy? Oh no... that was so weird and _cheesy_.”

“Way to go Phil,” mumbled Dan, “here comes the waiter, pipe down.”

The waiter took their money and nodded slightly to each of them in turn. Louise rested her chin on her hand as he back away and drifted out of earshot again. She could feel her face hot and flushed, from embarrassment and something else. Her mind turned to the wild images she’d formed regarding genitalia and limbs and mouths. Both Dan and Phil pushed back from the table, and grabbed their seats forcefully to put them back beneath the table. Louise sat and watched them shuffle back and forth from one foot to another for a moment. Then she realized they were waiting for her to stand and give them a goodbye hug. But her mind was still churning over this... joke, if that’s what it was. 

Louise rose hesitantly and crossed to their side of the table. She grasped Dan around the side and hugged him quickly, burying her face into the side of his chest. He grumbled above her, “Text me tonight. I swear nothing’s as creepy as it sounds.”

She let him go, huffed out a breath of air, and smiled up at him but her eyes were crinkled and furrowed. Dan sighed, looked away, and then shook his head slightly.

Phil reached a hand out. Louise stared at it for a moment. She groaned and rolled her eyes and then hugged him full on, his hand slowly coming around to pat her on the back awkwardly. Phil tightened his hold for a moment, and Louise snuggled up to him. Phil spoke so quietly only she could hear him. “If this talk upsets you, tell Dan. I’ll never speak of it again.” When she drew back, Louise watched his eyes track over her shoulder, never meeting her gaze. 

Louise let him go. They walked away, hands giving a final wave, weaving their way through the tables of the restaurant. Louise watched them both go, black and brown heads above most of the crowd, until Dan held the door open for Phil and they slipped through the door, the glass swinging back into place behind them. Phil dropped back a step and pulled alongside Dan. Louise studied Phil’s nose in its strong profile, until Dan took an extra step forward and drifted back into view as they turned the corner. The wind whipped both men’s hair into sharp spikes. Dan smiled down at the ground just after Phil finished speaking. After a moment, they walked beyond the windows of the restaurant. Only when the busboy cleared their plates with a clatter of silverware did Louise jump out of her reverie.


	2. Chapter 2

It would sneak up on her at odd moments. Were they joking? Were they serious? She would be gathering her hair into a braid, twisting the strands together in three plaits, thinking, swing one over the other and twist, and it would strike her -- _this is exactly what they’re asking you for._ She would be in the bath, warm water lapping at her breasts and against the swell of her hips, and if Louise’s eyes drifted shut a bit, she could imagine hands and tongues and hair against her skin. She would be cooking dinner, and the thought of it -- _a threesome! Involving me! Louise Pentland from Juniper Street in Northhampton!_ \-- would strike her simultaneously funny and incomprehensible. 

Dan’s texts were confusing in the week following the dinner. He steadfastly avoided the subject, unless she asked explicitly. Then he would answer in brief bursts -- _Was it a serious offer? / Yes, How does this work? / Anyway you want it to, Would alcohol be involved? / If you wanted, Where, pray tell, would this happen? / Where ever you wanted._ Then her tougher questions -- _Have you ever mixed casual sex with friendship? Will we be able to look each other in the eye afterward?_ \-- would be met with a blinking light as Dan typed, and apparently retyped, and apparently deleted. Louise felt a tug in her heart for his nervousness. She was sure that he was trying to work out what to say to her, people’s Internet mum, rather than sexy lady. He was only a few years younger than her, but she felt like everyone saw her the same way. He would spend many minutes typing, only for Louise to receive a text that read _We love you and we don’t want this iffer to ruin our friendships. Please don’t let it._ Louise smirked at his typo, but was touched by the emotion behind it. 

Three times she texted him about other things, and only once did he respond to her questions about their offer. It seemed the three of them were in some sort of invisible dance. If she stepped forward, they stepped away. Dan would text her back _sorry so busy get with me later_ and Louise’s head would ache with the fear of losing one or both of them. They were such nice friends.

A week passed, then two. 

Louise sent Phil a jokey Twitter DM. He responded with a big heart emoji and a pun. Louise tweeted him publicly. He responded almost instantly with a sweet message that the Dan and Phil fans gobbled up as a sign of his quirky cuteness. 

Louise sat in her bedroom, staring at the screen of her phone, considering how much she loved Phil. Her sock-clad feet rubbed together on her bedspread. 

Her love for Dan had always held a mark of a small crush. She couldn’t help it. Something chemical in Dan’s makeup called out to Louise. He had always been wildly attractive to Louise. Louise put Dan solidly into the _cute boys about which there is no chance_ category. She was, as the kids said, “thirsty” for Dan Howell. She had tried to deny it but it kept coming up at odd moments. Louise would find her eyes lingering on his lashes in profile or she would make an excuse to hug him a second time when they parted after dinner or from parties. But Louise had always held her crush in check, keeping it a small hidden blush that came out in their collabs and vlogs as an annoyance more than an embarrassment, her touches lingering but her professional reserve forcing her to turn back to the camera. 

But her collabs, as her relationship, was more friendly with Phil. Their Christmas collab had been one of her favorites, a normal “would you rather?” that had both of them giggling toward the end. Phil was tall and attractive, but his nature was so gentle and smooth. She knew him not to be the innocent, shy kid that his persona portrayed, but an extremely smart and thoughtful man. Hazel’s Christmas collab with Phil was another favorite of Louise, just for the mere fact that he had nearly cursed and she loved to see his naturally competitive personality come out. Phil brushing her breast with his knee had been awkward and only slightly titillating, buried as it was under their competitiveness over Obama Llama. Louise usually categorized Phil in the _cute boys in study group_ category. Of course, he always smelled really good, and when he would give her a patented Phil-answer that was both happy and innuendo, Louise would feel a natural pull of attraction toward Phil, quickly subdued.

And what was she to them? Louise thought about it for a moment. _Funny girl? Pretty face with great personality? Look mate, she’s probably above fourteen stone_ category? God knows, she knew how it felt to be there.

Dan’s panicky texts were balanced by Phil’s public display of affection. Louise’s interactions with Dan were balanced by something else about Phil: pessimism vs. optimism, procrastination vs. focus, cautiousness vs. eagerness, giggles vs smiles. How did one step into such a balanced partnership and end up swaying one way or the other, or would the level toss you careening off into the darkness, away from the even keel? 

Louise fell back against her pillows, dragged one over her face and screamed. She tossed the pillow away and listened closely. No running footsteps from the hall. If Darcy had heard, she apparently wasn’t concerned. Louise tugged at her soft sweatshirt. Her brain hurt with all the possibilities. 

That night she slept poorly. The next day Darcy noticed her mother’s tiredness and it seemed that her energy doubled in size, her questions boring into Louise’s brain. She finally put the child to bed early. 

Pacing her room, she texted her sister and asked for an emergency sit-down. Once they were together hours later, Louise detailed the bare bones of the proposition. She made sure to keep the entire affair anonymous. She described how one man had indicated, in every way possible, that the evening was entirely within her control, her choice of venue, alcohol, degrees of intimacy. She described how the other man had insisted that her friendship meant more than anything else, that it would never be brought up again if it upset her. Fran made her opinions known, especially when Louise prayed over the sin of it, the kinkiness of it, how much she had to think about herself as an autonomous woman in a new century. Louise swore her to secrecy. Fran made her promise to keep a calm head about herself, and that no matter the choice, she would talk to Fran about it when she was ready. Fran hugged her as she was leaving and whispered to her, “And I'm going to want details, Lou. _Details._ ”

Another week passed, and she seemed no more sure of her decision than the first joking reference Dan had made. She thought of all the many choices, of how she looked at herself, of how her friendship with these two men would evolve.

It rained for several days late in April, a soaking mist which dampened the entire countryside and curled her hair insanely, and her birthday brought cake, and wine with Matt and other friends, and gifts from Darcy. Their friends left and, after, Matt put Darcy to bed. Louise reviewed new apparel line options until nearly 8 pm. 

When Matt was leaving after tucking in Darcy for the night, he smiled softly at her and leaned back for a quick kiss. Louise turned her cheek up to her ex-spouse and hugged him slightly, missing their former times together with Darcy in bed and the house quiet. He would usually watch television or work on his computer, with a hand casually stroking her calf or smiling at her in the darkened lounge. Louise knew that they were better now, the hurt and heartache of too many disagreements and too much change no longer driving into a wedge between them at odd moments, but still she missed their quiet times. She shook her head, nuzzled Matt’s cheek with her own, and forced her mind and heart to turn back to her tablet with the clothing diagrams.

“Don’t work too hard, Mum,” murmured Matt into her ear.

Louise waved him away as the door swung shut behind him. The clicking of the latch reverberated through the quiet house. She turned and saw the drying wine glasses in the sink, the dishwasher humming away as it washed the day’s dishes. She had gone from morning routine with Darcy, to a trip to the shop, to the family birthday, to the dinner party, to the design review without really stopping to catch her breath. The light from the kitchen was a dull amber glow over her tablet, iPhone, and the scattered remains of her packages. 

Matt’s words echoed in her mind. There was no one else here to discuss, contemplate, or review anything. The cats listened, Darcy listened, but she had no one in the wheelhouse with her during so many hours of the day. She was always someone’s mum, someone’s friend, someone’s ex-wife.

Louise reached down and picked the phone up. It had been nearly two weeks since she’d tweeted Phil. Now she opened up a message to both Dan and Phil. The cursor blinked in the empty bubble for several moments. Everything had a use. Maybe Louise could use them for this, and they would understand her need. When the fridge kicked on, she startled then began to type.

_So how do we arrange this?_


	3. Chapter 3

Phil met her at the door in his dark maroon button-up decorated in white hearts. Louise stared at it for a moment, her nose crinkling in humor, before she smiled at him. She quickly stepped through the door into the lowest stairwell of their flat, brushed lightly against Phil and shivered unconsciously at the feeling of his lower arm against her hip. Louise swallowed and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

When she stepped back against the closed door, Phil’s cheeks were pink, with excitement or embarrassment, she couldn’t tell. He reached and took her bag, walked ahead of her up the stairs, and Louise stared at the tight flex of the black jeans on his hips and thighs. _Already hedonistic, you sorry girl_ , she considered, as she followed him. 

Phil asked, “How was the trip over?”

“Fine, fine,” murmured Louise, stepping around their landing, and Phil jogged up the four extra steps to the office. Louise gripped the railing. The extra bed was set up, the sheets turned down. Phil set her bag on the end of the bed, pushed it slightly forward, and then turned back to her with a nod. 

She let him motion her into the lounge. Dan was there in a black shirt and jeans. He stood too quickly, and they endured a brief back and forth missed kiss on the cheek, until Louise reached out and pulled him toward her. Her kiss was light. She left almost no mark on his cheek. Louise hadn’t worn a lot of makeup tonight. If this was going to happen, she didn’t want to end up looking like a raccoon.

Phil pulled the yellow chair out for her and they sat at the table. Dan poured a glass of red wine for her, and she accepted it gratefully. He, too, asked about her trip. The three of them exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes. Louise was very aware of the light fabric of her shirt and skirt against her skin, and Louise’s head was pounding with a queasy kind of eagerness mixed with trepidation. So far, this was just a stilted version of their regular visits. Their laughter was a little more forced, they each swallowed a bit more wine or scotch than usual. Dan swirled his glass of scotch as he studied her cautiously. Phil sat across from him and sipped at his own wineglass. They talked about nothing at all, and underneath, everything roiled.

Finally, Dan stuttered out, “So we’ve made up the spare room in the office for you.” He looked at her, then at Phil, then away to the table. His teeth held his bottom lip for a moment. “Like, no pressure,” he murmured.

“Thank you for making up the spare fore me,” answered Louise, “but I thought we had a rather different evening planned.”

Dan nodded slowly, and the tilt of his head caused a burst of heat to run from Louise’s throat down to her stomach. She swallowed as he rose. She took a hand as he silently offered it to her, swallowed the last of her wine in a gulp as he pulled her up from the table. Dan looked back at Phil with a frown. Phil moved his palm down her forearm. Louise drew a deep breath and stared back at him. “It’s okay, Louise,” said Phil, “let him show you first. We’re still talking... We’re not... It’s not-- nothing’s set yet.”

Louise let Dan guide her down the hall with Phil trailing behind her. Her shoulders shuddered a bit as she stared into each open door at the end of the hall. Both of the beds were turned back. There were four large pillows on Phil’s bed, with great fluffy towels at the end of the bed. Dan’s bed was turned back completely, the duvet gone. Only dark sheets with two pillows waited there. There were candles on the nightstand and the desk, and Dan’s bureau, which also held a bundle of towel-covered shapes.

Louise took a step back, and bumped into Phil, who ran one hand over her shoulder. Louise twisted away, took her hand out of Dan’s grip, and she watched them exchange worried looks before they leaned in. Before they could speak, Louise cried out, “Whoa! Whoa! I don’t know what you think that I can do--” she paused and leaned against the hall wall to steady herself, “but both beds means... what, exactly?”

“One’s for sleeping, and one’s for...,” murmured Dan, and then he coughed lightly. Louise narrowed her eyes at him, and then he grinned. Louise blushed deeply.

Dan motioned to his bedroom. “I set up everything earlier,” he said, “for us... If this is something that actually ends up happening between us, everything we might use. But Phil’s room -- we set that up for sleeping afterwards. He has a new mattress,” explained Dan. “And the sheets will be clean.”

“Oh,” whispered Louise. She could feel her heart beating rapidly. “That’s very-- very considerate.”

Phil rubbed a finger against the back of her shoulder again. “Dan spent hours setting everything up for you. He sent me to get the office ready.” Phil studied her thoughtfully for a moment. “C’mon, let’s go back to the lounge and talk for a bit.”  
Louise smoothed a strand of hair over her ear and nodded. 

When they were sat at the table again, she poured a fresh glass of wine. She looked back and forth between them. Phil kept his eyes on his tapping fingers on the wineglass. Dan looked at her and then at Phil, and then poured a fresh finger of scotch. They were all going to be completely pissed before they could do anything at this rate, so Louise took the bull by the horns. “Sorry, boys,” she said softly, “it was a little scary to see both rooms made up like that without knowing why.”

Phil shifted in his seat. 

Dan drank a swallow and looked at her over the rim of his glass. “Nothing has to happen, you know,” he said, “you can, like, stay in the spare like any other visit. I don’t expect anything beyond, like, what you’re willing to give.”

Louise stared into the red cloudy depths of her glass, twirled the sparkling liquid for a moment, breathed deeply of the floral scent. “And if I’m willing?”

Dan leaned back. He took a deep breath and frowned at his hand clutching his own knee for a moment. Phil looked at him, then at her, and Dan said, “We wanted to offer you the complete experience of this event. I know, that I, for one, want to make you, as a woman, as completely happy with the results and outcome as you’ve ever been. If you look upon this experience in a spiritual manner, than it is just us, two guys, asking you, a girl, to share in the enormity of physical passion. Like, I don’t want you to be nervous. And my God, if you’re nervous, tell us what about, and we will try to change the dynamics to make you more comfortable.” Dan’s hands began to gesture harder and harder in the air in front of him, emphasizing each point. Phil watched Dan’s gestures cautiously.

“Louise, trust me, when I say that you are so special, to both Phil and I, as a friend, as a woman, and we would never, ever betray your trust in coming here. Your satisfaction is utmost on both our minds.” He gestured to Phil, who opened his mouth to speak and then had to leave it slightly open, as Dan continued, “We’ll use protection. We’ll use lubrication. We are here for you,” now he was emphasizing with one hand in the air, pinching his fingers together with each downward slice, and Phil’s eyebrows drew together slightly as Dan rambled on, “This is a great test of your trust in us, as men, bloody hell, as human beings. We are very discrete. Extremely discrete. And if nothing beyond some kissing, some feeling, some touching ends up happening, it’s alright. It’s okay. We’re just here to try. To experiment. To enjoy love and loving and being loved, and I admire your fortitude to come here, with us, to do this.”

Dan took another breath, and Phil said quickly, “Sex is great. We so want you to have sex with us.” 

Louise choked slightly on her wine as she laughed. Dan rolled his eyes and pinched his brow, and blew out his breath. Phil drew in a little for a moment away from him and then clinked glasses with Louise over the table. His smile widened as Dan sucked on his own tongue for a moment. “Had to get that _quickly_ out of the way,” murmured Phil.

Dan rubbed a few fingers against his brow. 

Louise stood. Phil rose slightly, knees crooked awkwardly, and reached for her glass. Louise handed it over as she walked around Dan, touching Phil’s fingers lightly against the glass as it tilted and spilled a bit, then smoothing a hand over Dan’s shoulder. “I’m going up to the office, to get my things, and um-- put my nightie in Phil’s room. For sleeping, right?”


	4. Chapter 4

The office was cooler than the lounge, and Louise seized her black wrap top at the folds and fanned herself quickly. The wine was making her looser in the joints and kept her mind tripping down paths. She had desperately wanted to kiss Dan as she left the room, or pull Phil’s fingers into her mouth and suck the few droplets of wine from his thumb. She stared into the bag, drew out her gray t-shirt stretched and loose and soft. Just the feeling of it in her fingers caused her to shiver involuntarily. 

Louise laid it on the end of Phil’s bed. She looked around at the white fluffy towels on his shelf in front of the television. Someone had also set a bowl of water on the register. 

Suddenly Dan’s voice cut through her reverie of imagining the water dripping off skin and sliding through hair, his silent feet bringing him outside Phil’s door. “Louise?” he said quietly. She turned her head but did not look at him, unsure if her voice would be a little hoarse. “I was wondering if you... um, had any preferences of um-uh - things.”

“Like, what, things?”

“Candles, maybe?”

“Oh, I _love_ candles,” Louise let her voice drop a register and rolled her tongue inside her mouth. “Light a few, Dan.” He smiled at her and tapped his fingers on the wooden door frame of Phil’s bedroom. He lived with Phil, and Louise and Phil both shared that love of fragrance, and Louise was happy that he was thinking of her.

Dan rocked back and forth on his feet. “Music, or sound -- I mean, if things get--”

She interrupted him. “No lyrics, try something instrumental. Easy on the ears if you’ve got it.”

She felt him move away from Phil’s door. Louise reached out and gripped the end of Phil’s bed. Her limbs were tingling -- probably the wine, but also the anticipation was slowly starting to build. The weeks of waiting were almost over. Dan and Phil were like they had always been. Neither had immediately jumped her bones when she walked into the flat, neither had become handsy or forceful or demanding in the way men often did when they expected something from a woman in their space. 

Louise was slowly awakening to the idea that this experience, while they kept repeating that nothing was expected of her, was something that she truly wanted. It was the line between curiosity and imagination. She had joked about the coat threesome. Now she was in the room with both Phil and Dan, seeing their skin move beneath their clothes, watching their throats swallow drinks, their hands grip glass. Reality would be different, she knew, but the most private part of Louise clutched within to think of how it would be. 

She stopped outside Dan’s door and watched him fiddle with the iPhone on the stand. He’d lit several small candles around the room. She smiled to herself as he turned to her. Dan had made sure to set them up and out of the way, at the far back of the desk and on the very high end of his piano. The warm vanilla scent was wonderful.

Dan asked over his shoulder, “Anything else that you can think of?”

Louise hesitated and then walked into the door, stopping just within the room, her hands stuffed into her armpits. “There’s-- maybe...” She stopped and looked at him. His long fingers stopped scrolling through the playlist compilation, and Louise watched him wait cautiously to see what she needed. “It’s awfully bright in here,” said Louise quietly. “Maybe, not so much light? If you could?” He reached over and flipped off his overhead bedroom light. Now Louise was bathed in light from the hall, and Dan was cast into candlelit corners, the dark shape of him tall and imposing. 

Louise watched him walk over and turn on his amber light in the corner. The upturned pale orange umber cast his face in shadows as he looked back at her. All Louise could see was the glitter of his eyes in the low light, and the sharp contrast of his cheeks, until he lifted the glass and adjusted it. It suddenly cast a corner of beautiful light spilling across the floor in jagged peaks. 

Louise watched him, and Dan grinned again, jaggedly at her first. Louise had so many questions inside of her, and she couldn’t seem to bring them forth, past the lump in her throat. As fast as things were happening, they also seemed to be moving glacially. Louise blinked a few times and decided to be brave. She walked to Dan’s desk, and as she came forward, he leaned over the table to fiddle with the candles. Louise watched his reflection in the large ornate mirror set in his bedroom corner. 

She asked, “Dan, do you mind-- could you--” His eyes met her gaze in the reflection, and the flickering light made his deep color even more pronounced. Louise looked down at the desk to get away from his inquisitive gaze, and found herself staring at the lumpy towel, all its hills and valleys. There was things under there that she was a bit too anxious to question so Louise looked back up at him quickly and asked, “Dan, if you don’t mind, would you tell me if I’m the first person you’ve asked to do this?” _And why me?_

Dan smiled and leaned on one long shoulder, his body bowed away from the desk, balanced on the edge. “You’re not,” he said quietly. “Phil and I have had this experience, um, three times before.”

“Good,” Louise nodded. She looked around his room at the various bric-a-brac, the books on the shelf, the pillow in the corner of the floor, and she said softly, “I’m glad we’re not all going through this for the first time together.” She took a deep breath. There was something else turning over in her mind, and she was afraid to bring it to him. For a very long time, Louise felt others perceived her as someone’s mum, and therefore their mum, and it was fine, it really was, but it made her curious as to why Dan and Phil would include her in this relationship. They had experience with others, so Louise wasn’t the first one, and Louise wondered why would they even include her on the list of candidates.

“Why--” Louise stumbled and stuttered -- “Why-- I mean -- I’m listening to all your assurances, but I can’t-- it’s me, Dan--”

Dan turned to her, dropped a hand over her trembling one. He squeezed it. When Louise met his eyes, she was breathing fast, in near panic. “Shhh,” Dan murmured. “It’s a natural question.” He drew a breath, and asked earnestly, “Phil is a very lovely man, yeah?”

Louise’s brows drew together. “Yeah?” she said hesitantly. Dan has gone off on another trail. Unless it was Phil who had proposed Louise as a member of this setup, a third to their dual heat. 

“So, Phil’s very attractive,” Dan said. He took his hand away and drew it through his hair, looked out his bedroom window. “But, um, when you get to know him, he’s charming and intelligent. This whole arrangement, the other arrangements--” Dan looked at her quickly and then away, moving the candles for a hundredth time -- “I’m very aware that Phil is a great part of that. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to get with him?”

Dan sighed. “When I met him, I was a scrawny eighteen year old who loved music and video games,” he said, “and, like, as much as everyone wants to define what we are together, to give it a name, to define it, to draw a line from there--” Dan’s hand marked two places “-- to there, and say _this is what they are_ , all I know is that I just loved him from the start.”

“It’s not anybody else’s business,” sighed Louise, leaning into him. 

Dan smiled softly. “I don’t why we can’t share that love, with others, with our bodies, through sex. Finally I’m something he can show off, now that I’ve aged and my body’s changed. Um, and others, can, uh, give him... Um, they can do for him what I can’t.” At the end, Dan’s voice was barely a murmur in the room. 

Louise took a step back and shook her head. “What in the world can you not give him? I mean, yeah, sex is different from love, but I don’t know what you mean.” This conversation was getting farther and farther from the reason why it was Louise who had been invited. 

Louise studied him as he set the candles again. Finally, he pressed his lips, and looked at her from the corner of his eye. Dan leaned in and said, “You’ve heard the rumors about Phil, yeah?” When she tilted her head and squinted one eye, Dan very pointedly glanced down below Louise’s waist and then back up. “The rumors?” Dan prompted. Louise startled when she realized what he was discussing. She nodded. Dan continued, “Well, um... It’s, uh, true. I’m pretty average in terms of size--” suddenly he grimaced and he leaned back on his heels, as his voice dropped into suave sophistication and he smiled lasciviously at her -- “I mean, I’m quite large.”

Louise bumped him with one shoulder and rolled her eyes. Dan chuckled, and cast a hand back and forth in the air, and proclaimed, “I mean, no complaints.”

“Shut up,” she chided him. Dan snickered for a moment.

“But, uh, Phil’s... How can I say?” Dan grimaced, crinkled his nose. “You’ve heard of a _grower, not a show-er_? Well, Phil is a show. Eer. He’s like half an inch longer when he’s fully erect. Fully soft, he’s as long and as thick as most men are at the end.” Louise blinked rapidly and took a step backward. Dan didn’t seem to notice her nervousness and lingering excitement.

Dan tapped the desk. “He can barely stuff himself into those jeans he wears, but it’s not like he’s so--” Dan’s voice trailed off, as he noticed that Louise was not speaking, and he shook his head. “Sorry, too much information. But it stills stands -- Phil’s rumor is true.”

He brought a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed it slightly. Sheepishly, he looked around the room. “Please, please don’t tell him I told you this,” Dan whispered softly. Louise nodded and twisted an invisible key to her lips. “We don’t have sex the way you think we... have sex.”

“Oh God,” Louise said. Dan winced at her slightly, so she remembered something else and stuttered out, “You don’t use household utensils, do you?”

For a moment Dan gasped in shock and then he mock-shook his finger at her. “How dare you bring up that goddamn whisk?!” As Louise was giggling, he reached over and shook her shoulders back and forth next to him. Louise chortled loudly, clapped a hand over her mouth, and looked at him through teary eyes. Dan let her go and his fingers flexed in the air on either side of her shoulders. Dan narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re this close--” he pinched his fingers together -- “to getting kicked out of the threesome.”

“No, no,” she said through tears and laughter, “go on, go on, I’m sorry, go on.”

Dan sighed deeply and then grinned at her. His eyes twinkled. That part of Louise which had always harbored a torch for Dan Howell flickered deep inside. Her breasts tingled hotly when he turned the full force of that smile on her, and her knees wavered like they were filled with water.

Dan sucked his inner cheek for a moment, and then said, “People think that two guys together can only have sex in terms of --” he paused, plundered on -- “anal sex. That anal’s always the endgame. But Phil and me, we’re not... We’ve tried, but there’s just an indescribable _ick_ factor for the both of us, and we don’t really get anything out of it,--” He stopped and looked at her suddenly. “Sorry, Louise, definitely too much information.”

“Anyway,” Dan waved a hand around the room, “When we have this experience, there’s a partner there who may be able to, um, deal with Phil’s, um, unique situation. I wanted to tell you--” he glanced at the doorway -- “outside of earshot, just to let you know that you shouldn’t be surprised or anything. He intimidates without meaning to do it, and with Phil’s personality, sometimes that shuts everything down anyway. But he loves -- he loves -- to be inside someone, and I do too, but it’s just something we’re missing as a unit. Toys can only give you so much pretend. And Phil absolutely will not force you but he sees more than he lets on, he won’t be happy if someone is judging already.”

“I’m a little nervous,” answered Louise. “Little anxious. Glad to know that Phil’s not going to force anything.”

Dan turned to her. He ran his palms lightly down her shoulders, and drew her hands in together at the center of her chest. “Neither will I,” he said, rocking toward her a little. In the faint light, Louise imagined bending her head back and kissing him. But she was still fighting within herself. Was that all their reasoning, that she was a waiting receptacle? If they could use her that way, perhaps she could use them for her own lustful purposes. But her heart ached to think that it was just her because she was convenient. It made her more afraid that, unlike Dan’s joke, she would actually be excluded from the ménage à trois. Her body wasn’t nearly what they would be expecting.

“I’m just afraid, is all,” she said, which was true as far as it went. “You know, maybe I’m not cut out for this.”

Dan scoffed and very slowly leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips. It might have been a kiss that one gave to a new girlfriend. Louise felt the heat in her body respond, but she was focused on his face moving away. “I think you’re perfect,” he murmured. “For this.” 

Louise smiled. It wasn’t true, of course, but she couldn’t bear to break it to him. The other part was that she desperately wanted him to add _for us_ , and when he didn’t, instead stepping away and kissing her knuckles before he dropped her hands, Louise shook the tears away from her eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured as she left his bedroom and drifted back down the hall.


	5. Chapter 5

When she turned the corner to the lounge, her glass and Dan’s glass were still on the table, but Phil was sitting on the sofa. His long legs were crossed at the ankle on the coffee table. Louise lightly lifted her glass and wound her way around the chaise to fold herself next to him. Phil snuggled down into the end pillow and smiled at her. Louise sipped her wine and crossed her legs, one hand rubbing down her knee.

“More relaxed now?” asked Phil. His voice had a sleepy quality, but it trembled.

“Hmm-mm,” answered Louise as she swallowed the last of her wine. The empty glass clinked on the dark wood of the table as she set it down. Her heart ached as the decision loomed before her. Both Dan and Phil were so sweet, and if she used them in this way, without anything more than convenience, then it made sense to banish her fear to the farthest corners of her heart. 

“He must have spent two hours arranging our bedrooms for you today,” Phil said. He snuggled into the black cushions, and threw an arm over his head. Louise tried to ignore the soft curls brushing the edge of his maroon shirt where his sleeve rode up beneath his arm. “I cleaned, and Dan arranged. I scrubbed until my shoulders ached. Dan actually bent on his knees and smoothed the sheets with a ruler from the office. Damn Royal navy couldn’t make tighter corners.”

Louise giggled. Phil smirked and looked at the ceiling for a moment. When he dropped his head against the cushion again, Louise took the opportunity to snuggle a bit closer to him. His breathing quickened slightly as she slid just within a hair of impropriety. Louise could feel the heat from his arm as her arm rested against him. She swallowed, and Phil’s eyes tracked down her neck to the crossover of her blouse. 

Louise leaned in slightly, and before she could make the decision to push herself all the way, Phil was tilting toward her. She had a moment of thought -- _this is actually happening_ \-- and then Phil was kissing her. His lips parted slightly and he kissed her deeply, but slowly. Louise felt his arm twitch above his head, the abortive attempt to move down to her shoulder, and she felt him suck in a breath quickly as their lips parted. Louise blinked up at him, red-faced, her long blonde hair swept over her shoulder by Phil’s other hand, and then he was holding her, tentatively. He held her in that way that men who are unused to holding a particular woman hold on -- lightly, softly, and then a clutching grip at her back. She shivered as he pulled her closer with his fingers resting on her spine. She chuckled as he moved his head against her, tilting it in the other direction but entangling with her nose and cheek, and when Phil huffed in disappointment, she reached up a hand to cup his jaw and steady him. They slanted against each other for a few moments. Louise tasted mint in his mouth. She prayed her own breath wasn’t a winey-fermented soup, but Phil moaned low in his throat and broke from her, panting, so she assumed it wasn’t that bad.

From behind them, a cough reverberated. Louise startled back from the warm circle of Phil’s arms and stiffened her spine. It was a polite cough, clearly a warning cough that someone else had entered the room. Louise resisted the urge to pull her legs up against her chest and bury her face in her knees. 

She felt the chaise dip under Dan’s weight, and she tried to turn slightly to watch him, but Phil kept her beneath his arm and wouldn’t let her turn. She stared up at him, as he looked back and forth between Dan and her. Louise saw that his lips were a deep wine color, plump from their kiss. 

Dan’s arm lightly brushed the bottom of her skirt and brought the blue fabric up a few inches as he trailed his hand over her knee and thigh. He studiously avoided her stomach, swinging back toward her bicep instead. _Good boy_ , thought Louise. _He remembered._ But when he dropped his hand to her breast, massaged it lightly, sweeping his fingers down and down to the flat bone between her breasts, raking at her upturned nipple on the other side, Louise forgot all about that.

Dan finished pulling her hair away from the side of her throat and kissed delicately as his right hand slid beneath Phil’s arm and pulled Louise bodily to him. Phil pushed himself closer and found her lips again, kissing gently again, sucking harder at the bottom lip. With Phil at her front and Dan on his side next to her, for the first time, Louise felt their bodies contact lightly. There was the knobbiness of shoulders and the flat plane of chests, the hips in front and in back, as Louise’s mind tried to sort out why there were two sets of everything. Lips touched her neck and collarbone. Lips plucked at her jaw and pulled her lips away from her teeth. A hand on her breast, a hand curling down her spine. There was just so much. 

When she pulled away she heard them connect with each other. She opened her eyes to see above her Dan and Phil kissing deeply, richly, more familiar with each other than they were with her. Louise sank into the pillow. She watched as Phil gasped into Dan’s turning lips, pulled Dan’s mouth against his jaw and then Dan moaned low in his throat. Louise could feel the sound in his diaphragm pressed into her arse. 

It was incredibly hot and erotic, doubled by Phil’s slight chortle and then Dan’s warning sound, and then Phil’s burst into giggles. It was intimacy she did not share with either of these men... at least not yet. 

When they pulled away from each other, Dan was gasping. Phil’s ears were red, and he kept biting his lip several times. Dan leaned down into Louise’s shoulder and rocked back and forth with his forehead pressed against her for a few moments. All she could hear was the whoosh of blood in her ears. 

“Sorry,” mumbled Phil.

“S’kay,” Louise whispered. “Was kind of hot, actually.” Phil’s blush darkened his cheeks and neck.

Louise brought one hand up to cup Phil’s jaw, smoothing her thumb over his lips as she drew it down, and then used the same hand to brush her knuckles against Dan’s face. Behind her, he turned his head until his lips kissed her fingertips.

“Okay,” said Louise as she wriggled around to her back. The skirt tangled in her legs and rode up to several inches above her knees. She shivered. Phil finally pulled his arm back toward him, and Dan touched her hip lightly as he drew back. Now there were a few inches to either side of her body. They were both still so close Louise could feel them breathing just next to her. She looked back and forth between them. Dan and Phil glanced at each other over her head. “Okay.”

“Umm.. So, uh--” Dan began.

“Yes,” Louise said, “we’re going back to your bedroom. Pretty soon actually. But let’s lay out some ground rules, okay?” She picked at a hangnail on her little finger, bloodying the skin, until Phil reached out and pulled her hand away. Louise didn’t look at him. “Okay?”

“Yep.”

“Alright.”

“First things first... what’s not allowed? Always good to start with no-gos.” Louise looked up at Dan and then stared at their beautiful light fixture again. “Dan already knows that I don’t like having my stomach touched or caressed or anything like that. I mean, you’ll probably lean into it as some point, but just don’t spend any time purposefully there.”

“Feet,” murmured Phil quickly. “Don’t touch my feet.”

Dan flattened his expression into distaste. “How in the bloody hell is she going--”

“Dan,” warned Louise. “I won’t touch your feet, Phil. Not that big on the toe-sucking, are you?” Phil shuddered and grimaced, and Louise wriggled toward him, laughing a bit until she pulled her hand back and sucked her little finger. The blood was acrid in her mouth. 

Louise looked pointedly at Dan and nudged him with an elbow. “No grabbing the love handles,” said Dan, and when Louise quickly narrowed her eyes, he shook his head. He could make fun of Phil’s restriction, but no one was apparently called to question his own. She didn’t like it. When she drew a deep breath, he cut her off. “I’m honoring your stomach thing and Phil’s feet thing. No love handle touching.”

The three of them stared at the ceiling for a few long moments. Phil sighed and rotated his ankles on the coffee table. His joints cracked loudly. Louise looked down his body and then swept her long-lashed gaze down Dan’s body pointedly. Having caught both of their attentions, she raised her two hands in the air just above them. She laced her fingers together and rotated them sideways, then one on top the other. “How exactly-- I suppose, my question is-- what’s, um, what’s the configuration?” Dan stared at her blankly, and Phil quirked an eyebrow. “How exactly are we going to fit together?”

She swallowed. Her hands seemed to collapse into each other.

“Ah,” said Phil. “Any way we want.” He reached out and put a hand on her wrist, slipped his long fingers up to cup her nails at the end. Dan reached over and wriggled his hand on the underside, pressed lightly against the back of her hand with his finger pads. Louise felt heat spark low in her belly. The skirt suddenly seemed too tight, draped far too clingy around the back of her thighs. 

Dan smiled, “Any way we want... Any way you want.” That melodic voice sank deeply into her. Louise was aware she was panting a bit. 

She let her hands drop. 

Phil scooted back on the sofa, while Dan swung his legs over the chaise next to the coffee table. Louise looked back and forth between them. Phil bent his head down and fiddled with his hair. Dan stared at his fingers as they tapped lightly on the table. 

Louise gripped the sofa cushion and pulled herself to the edge. Both of them stopped moving. She looked to Phil and reached out a hand to stroke her nails down his jawline. He smiled quickly, shivered a bit as he looked up at her. Louise bent forward and kissed him unhurriedly, stroking hard against him. Phil whimpered a bit into her mouth. Breaking from him, she pulled a quick breath and then turned to Dan, who leaned lightly into her and brushed a kiss against her cheek down to Louise’s jaw, in long slow circles. 

Louise pulled back from him. Everyone was breathing louder than usual in the room. Her heart was pounding. “Let’s go, then,” she murmured. Together the three of them rose, and Louise smiled when she heard Dan’s knees crack. He reached for her hand and guided her around the chaise. Behind them, Louise took Phil’s hand. 

Dan stumbled around the other side of the coffee table too fast, and yelped a little bit as he almost fell directly into the lounge floor. He balanced on one foot gingerly, and then straightened up. Sheepishly he grimaced at them. Behind her, Louise heard Phil snort with suppressed laughter. She squeezed Phil’s hand silently, brushed her thumb against his index finger. 

As they passed out into the hall, Louise paused and pulled gently at either man’s hand. “I’m going down to the loo, to freshen up a bit, okay,” her voice raised lightly in question. They let her hands go simultaneously.

“Don’t, um, don’t be long, okay?” Dan leaned against her, brushed his shoulder lightly into hers. Louise felt a slice of heat between her hips. She swallowed around the wine’s aftertaste, and nodded.

On the way, she grabbed her purse from the office. In the bathroom, Louise quickly shut the small door and used the toilet. She’d practically moisturized every single inch of her body for the past few days, but after her urine was gone, she used wet wipes from the purse to clean herself. She reached inside and checked to make sure that the tiny strings of the IUD were pushed up as far as they could go against her cervix. If she’d found that the device had slipped, she truly didn’t have a backup plan for that. But her body felt smooth and slightly slick, and the IUD strings were just faint lines from within the round muscular entrance to her womb. While washing her hands, avoiding her eyes in the mirror, Louise popped a mint and breathed out quickly several times around it as she chewed. When the cool mint was gone, Louise looked at herself in the mirror.

Her lips were swollen from Phil’s kisses, her shirt tugged down low on one side from Dan’s play with her breasts earlier. Louise blinked at herself. Her green eyes were dilated with want and need. Her cheeks were soft pink. She rubbed a hand down her face, and ran the water to wet her face. It clung in droplets that dripped from her jaw onto her collarbone and then rolled into the hollow between her breasts. Louise shivered slightly. _This is happening,_ she thought. _You’re in Dan and Phil’s apartment, and you’ve been invited to have sex with them, and this may change your relationship with them forever, but if you want to do this, it is happening, Louise._

She took a deep shuddering breath. Gripping the damp edges of the sink, she rocked back and forth twice, and then swung open the glass door.


	6. Chapter 6

The hall was empty. Soft instrumental music was coming from Dan’s room. Louise walked more slowly as she approached the open door. 

When she rounded the corner, Phil was leaned against the piano, and Dan was sitting on the bed. Dan hopped up as soon as he saw her, smoothing his hand down his jeans as both he and Phil exchanged a glance, before they turned their attentions to her. She noticed they had quickly divested themselves of their socks, and she smiled when she looked down and saw each man’s toes curling into the carpet with quick excited movements. There was something about a man’s bare feet and ankles peeking out below his jeans that was so vulnerable, comfortable, and sexy.

“Hello,” she said weakly.

Louise smoothed her hair down over her ears, touched the hair again, and considered what her loose blonde curls would mean in a bed with three bodies. She held up one finger and raked her hands through her hand to quickly divide it into three sections. Phil smiled at her as she apologized to them both. He shook his head and actually moved behind to help keep the strands separated. Dan walked around the room and moved the candles around on the nightstand and desk as Phil helped her silently braid her own hair quickly. Phil’s hands were mostly ineffective, but his light touch brushed against her shoulders and sent tingles through her skin. He kept murmuring, “This one?” as she took the strands from him. Louise’s fingers deftly made a big chunky braid. As she worked down to the middle of her back and swung her hair over her shoulder, Phil moved around to her side and softly kissed her on the curve of her upper arm. 

Louise’s fingers trailed out against the tail of her hair. She looked around quickly. “You don’t happen to have a string or a hairtie, do you?”

“Ribbon do?” asked Dan, as he pulled the drawer out from the bureau and held up a black ribbon.

She reached for it, and as their fingers connected, she noticed Dan’s eyes were definitely not on the end of her braid. She smirked slightly, tying the end of the braid together, Phil still standing very close next to her, and smoothed the hair over her left nipple deliberately. Her body reacted through the black fabric of the shirt. The way it crossed beneath her ribs emphasized each breast. But Louise’s eyes were squarely on Dan. Dan’s throat bobbed quickly, and his eyes widened, his gaze never leaving her torso. 

Louise swept the hair up and raised both arms above her head as she tucked the elbows back behind her. She was wide open to him. Her breasts pressed against the front of her black wrap blouse. She knew that the creamy pink skin of her throat contrasted with the black sheen. When she drew a deep breath, hands still behind her head, she could feel her nipples harden a bit against the fabric. Dan made a sound as though someone had shoved him. Even his body rocked back a little bit.

Louise closed her eyes, elbows out, wriggled her body slightly. She opened her eyes and looked at Phil to see his reaction. Phil was staring at her, a small smile appearing on his lips as he noticed her open eyes. His blue eyes were dark pools in the faint light. “Impressive,” he murmured. “Dan’s a breast man.”

“Are you.. Are you not a breast man?”

“I like ... other things,” Phil responded. She felt his rich velvet timbred voice echo deeply in the center of her body. Louise sighed a bit raggedly. If this was a sign of what was to come, she was suddenly unsteady on her feet. Phil was undeniably sexy.

Phil’s face relaxed slightly from a flirtatious sexy man back into her friend, her sweet, slightly awkward, clumsy friend. It was the same face in the dim lighting, it simply rearranged itself from sexy to curious, and in that moment Louise’s fingers relaxed. “That good?” he said, and his tongue poked slightly out as he grinned, “I felt like that was some a-prime flirting, right here.” Louise blinked quickly, and before she could help it, a responding smile bloomed on her face. She let her hands drop to her side and sank against the piano. 

“Phil, you’re ruining the mood.” Dan’s dry voice was accompanied with narrowed eyes.

Phil shook his head. “Sorry, sorry,” he whispered and rocked back a little.

“No,” said Louise, and pulled him back against her side. “I like it.”

“Really?” Phil looked over at Dan triumphantly. Dan rolled his eyes.

“Yeah,” said Louise. “If things get too intense, it reminds that you’re... You’re both still you, ya know?” She looked at Dan and then back at Phil. Louise licked her lips and stuttered, “You’re you, and I know you, and I’m not to be afraid.” When she smiled brightly up at him, he ducked his head and his ears turned faintly pink, and Louise felt his hand slide down her back to cup her butt slightly. “Ooomph,” she said aloud, leaning into it a little. He mimicked a pouty lip for a moment and squeezed her bum for a moment too long. Oh god, maybe Phil wasn’t a breast man, but maybe he could tease her in other ways.

Louise looked back at the desk. “Alright, so, what’s the towel about?” she asked. Dan reached over and whipped it off like a magician. Louise pursed her lips and breathed out slowly. There was a bowl of condoms, a few different vibrating toys, and two bottles of lube. “That’s.. That’s, um,--”

“Like our girl box, but the sex version,” Dan said cheekily. She stared at him in shock. He gestured over them slowly, giving them a showcase model turn. She could tell that he wanted her to be so proud that they had compiled the entire set. When he noticed that Louise hadn’t stopped clinging to Phil and had instead covered her mouth with her hand, his hands stopped in midair. “Oh fuck, what is it? Oh God, am I kicked out of the threesome?”

Louise laughed and shook her head. “No, not kicked out just yet. But it’s, it’s... Quite a _bit_ of stuff,” Louise began. Phil squeezed her side again and without looking at Dan, began to wave his hand in the air. Dan hurriedly moved to cover up. Louise shook her head and Dan dropped the tea towel next to all the supplies. “No, no... I’m just surprised by it, is all. And, and... Well, it seems to be a lot of stuff.” She drew a shaky breath as her voiced whined a bit. “You know, like a lot of stuff?”

They looked at her in the faint yellow light from the crystal lamp in the corner and the candles scattered around. Louise drew a deep breath, pulled away from Phil and walked to the desk. She picked up the bowl and peered into it. There were two different sizes of condoms, some with ribbed sides and some with color. Louise whispered, “I mean, are we meant to use all of these?” Her voice sounded very small in Dan’s room. “I’m not sure that I’ve enough stamina for all these.”

Dan bit back a laugh and looked at Phil. When Louise turned back to him, Phil’s fingers were stroking his forehead and he was giggling softly. “Ah, memories,” Dan said. “Phil and I had a similar conversation before... in a different time.” Phil crossed his arms and rocked back and forth on his feet. 

Louise turned her attention back to Dan, who approached her slowly and slid his hand beneath hers to cause her to set the bowl back on the table. This close, she could see the flickering excitement in his brown eyes. “We’ll use protection, like I said,” Dan murmured, and then he stepped close enough to her that she could feel the heat radiating from him. Louise tilted her head back to watch him closely as he said softly, “Enough is there.... for any eventuality, but also for, like.... changing out as much as we want.”

The mention of changing out caused that hot swoop deep in her belly again. Louise could feel the braid dangling between her shoulder blades, and the blouse felt so tight. She turned her back to the windows and leaned her butt against the desk. In turning, she brushed slightly against Dan. He took a shallow breath and shifted his weight to the leg nearest her. 

Louise watched Phil run his fingers over his ears and through his hair. “Shut the door, yeah,” she said, and he stumbled back and quickly shut Dan’s bedroom door. 

Now there was only the light from the candles and the amber glow from the lamp. They were larger than her, male shadowy bodies in the space between the piano and the bed and the desk, and Louise licked her lips gently, sucked on her bottom lip as she breathed in and out. 

Louise reached down to her waist and tugged at the knot of her wrap blouse. Her fingers fumbled with it for a moment, and then her nail caught the long sweeping tail on the left side. As Phil stepped a little closer to them, Dan’s hand ran down her arm to her elbow. Her movement was measured as she untied the knot and let the black fabric unwrap from her belly. The blue skirt was high on her waist, but her lacy bra slid into view as the fabric fluttered away to either side. 

Louise drew a quick breath and moved her shoulders back to let the blouse fall off. As it left her, Dan caught it on her right side and gently draped it over the back of his modernistic butt chair. Louise felt goose pimples bloom on her arms as she shivered. She looked down at herself and saw her belly covered by the satin waistband of the blue skirt. Her hardened nipples brushed the smooth cups of the bra.

When she looked up again, Phil was following suit. His fingers were deftly moving down the maroon heart shirt, unbuttoning as they went, the tiny white hearts jittering. He tossed the shirt behind him with one hand. Louise stared at his chest and stomach. He was not quite as muscular as someone who went to the gym everyday, but he was flat and looked wonderfully soft. Darker tufts of hair peeked out from either underarm and a swath of curly hair sprinkled down the center of his chest. Phil’s nipples in the faint light looked as dark as plums. Below his belly button, disappearing into the waistband of his jeans, was another strip of dark hair. 

Louise had barely recovered, panting slightly, when Dan reached behind him and brought his black t-shirt over his head with both hands. He tossed it away, and standing closer to him, Louise could see each muscle in his arms and chest rotate with his movement. His pulse was beating hard in his throat as she focused on him. He was more golden than alabaster in the light compared Phil’s pale form, and his nipples were stiff and red. If he had hair on his chest or beneath his arms, or even in that trail down to his privates, it was so well matched to the color of his skin that Louise couldn’t distinguish it. She knew that about him from one of their videos, but his creamy skin more than made up for it.

Louise walked to Phil and kissed him hard. She swept her lips against him again, and again, and felt his arms wind around her waist and then up to her braid, seeking that soft spot underneath the nape of her neck. He tasted of the wine they’d had earlier, and a faint tangy aftertaste of chives. Louise drew a breath, pulled back, and wrapped her arms around his neck to fully press herself against his chest, feeling the hair there stimulate her deliciously with its wiry bounce, and ran her tongue against his throat, that prominent adams-apple, the underside of his jaw. Phil leaned back and moaned a bit.

When she dipped back to take a breath, Phil pulled her braid over one of her shoulders. At first she was confused, but then she felt Dan’s arms slide down her sides. Louise tightened her grip on Phil and kissed him again as Dan gripped her hips and pushed himself against her back. Phil pulled her head back roughly and then she bent backwards and kissed Dan’s jawline. Her nose brushed his throat,but barely, and when Phil pulled her back to claim her mouth again, Louise realized that he’d pulled her up on her tiptoes. She felt her calves stretch in her heels. She reached one hand down behind her and moved against Dan’s thigh, pushing him back a little.

He actually moaned in protest. Louise bit into Phil’s lower lip and pulled at the flesh, and then caught her torso between their bodies, and murmured, “Boys, the heels might hurt, watch out.”

Dan reached behind her and tried to get her bra off. He would have slipped the hooks easily had Louise not twisted slightly and shrunk closer to Phil. Phil exchanged a worried glance with Dan above her head, and Louise said softly into his collarbone, “I’m a bit... I’m...” 

That was all she got out, because Phil leaned down and kissed her strongly. When she closed her eyes and sank against him, Phil quickly slipped his fingers through the hooks and the bra fell away to her front. Gasping, she drew back a little, but only saw those beautiful blue eyes nodding gently, a smile spreading across his face. “It’s alright,” he murmured quickly. “Show us, please, show me.”

When she stepped back into Dan’s broad chest, Phil’s gaze dropped to her bosom and she watched the pulse beat more quickly in his throat. He took one hand and trailed it so lightly against her shoulder and collarbone, then down to circle the tip of one breast, it might have been a breath of wind. Louise shivered and felt the nipple pucker strongly. She glanced down at herself and then away. The baby had brought a great swelling and then after a year or so, a series of long thin stretch marks on the outer sides. Louise had never, ever been perky, even as a young girl. But now they were so positively heavy and pendulous. She tried not to think that both Phil and Dan had probably seen better, higher breasts, ones that weren’t affected by childbirth or weight.

She felt Dan’s hand come around the side and touch where Phil had just been, and he was tall enough to peek over her shoulder. Louise ran a hand up over her ear on the opposite side, kept looking away, smoothing a errant strand of hair back to the braid. 

She did not expect to feel Dan’s hips move against her suddenly, jerking far more rapidly than she had ever expected. Louise squeaked in shock. Dan only groaned.

“Oh yes,” said Phil quietly, “look how lucious.” He closed his fingers over Dan’s hand and squeezed Louise’s nipple using Dan’s fingers. “Look how pink.” His lips popped with the sound. As they massaged her breast together, Louise remembered her virginal color, the lightest barest blush of pink on either breast. As she had aged and after Darcy, her aureole had darkened to a much richer pink color against her creamy skin. Now Dan’s fingers, under Phil’s guidance, massaged them into tight hot buds against her breast.

When she leaned back into Dan, feeling his heat through the jeans, Phil seized Dan’s hand and took it from her breast back to her hips. He leaned down and sucked one tender nipple into his mouth, flicking the tip and kissing the soft skin around it, before pulling at it urgently again. If Dan hadn’t been holding her from behind, Louise would have fallen backward. Her pulse began to beat urgently between her legs. She ran her fingers through Phil’s dark hair, feeling the wonderful heat of his skin at his scalp and pulling at his longer locks in the front with gentle urgency, as he bent her slightly to the side and cupped her breast from just above her ribs to her underarm.

When he let go, and looked up, his blue eyes were shot through with dark irises. She could barely see a ring of blue around the edges. She blinked a few times and wondered if her own eyes were dark with desire. Phil leaned up and, without looking away from her gaze, he said to Dan, “You have to taste her, Dan. She’s delicious.”

He swung her around, Louise’s control completely gone, and then leaned her back against him. Louise watched as Dan’s hand dipped from the hollow of her throat and dragged down between her breasts. He massaged each breast gently with each hand, setting a deliberately slow dragging rhythm from outer edge to cupped underside to the pink of her nipple. When he kissed her there, she felt her back arch and bend more than it had with Phil. Louise draped one arm over Phil’s shoulder for balance. She could feel him breathing as he supported her. Dan licked at her, using his tongue to moisten her skin, and then sucked gently at her breast, then harder and harder still, even harder than when Phil had pulled her nipple into his mouth, and Louise leaned back into Phil and gasped loudly.

“God, she is,” Dan finally said, dragging in a breath, and moving from one breast to the other, he repeated his actions again and again. Louise’s breasts felt hot and heavy. Louise threaded her fingers through his hair as he worked her. Dan’s hair was softer than Phil’s straight locks, more fine and wispy, delicate and short at the scalp line. She moaned low in her throat.

Suddenly Phil said, “We sound like cannibals.”

Dan stopped moving on her breast. Louise felt his lashes blink against her upper slope, and then the exasperated sigh washed against her nipple.

Phil continued mockingly, “ _She tastes great. Here, Dan, have a taste._ ” Suddenly he slurped, his lips smacking together obscenely. The sound was loud and wet and incongruous in the room. Moving from swollen longing back to loving ridiculousness, Louise set her heels back between his feet and bumped him gently. With a shock, she realized that, while she could feel Dan’s heat in the front, Phil’s erection was clearly outlined but hidden, now pressed large and swollen in the curve of her ass. He laughed against the top of her head. “Maybe we should get the ketchup?” he continued in his line of thought.

Louise chuckled and clutched Dan’s head against her chest. Whatever else was happening, and Louise’s body clamped inside involuntarily at the thought of Phil’s need for her, he was defusing this situation a little bit with his humor. He had pulled them back before they had gone so far as to be frightened.

When Dan lifted his head, his cheeks were flushed but he was smiling. “This guy,” he murmured.

Clutching Dan’s hips in front, and then pushing Phil’s hips back behind her, Louise parted from them both. Louise fought the urge to hide her breasts. She felt the cool air swirl as she walked away from the two of them. When she turned, Dan was leaning slightly toward Phil, but both of them were watching her. In the dim light, Louise trembled.

“Two sizes,” she said huskily, her breath struggling to return to normal. She held up the two types of condoms from the bowl. “Who gets which packet?”


	7. Chapter 7

“I’m blue,” said Dan.

“Black for me, thanks.”

Louise struggled to read the fine text as she held them. The blue ones were ribbed on the outside; a few were herring-boned. The black ones advertised extra stretch and had a soft amount of lube embedded into the inner shaft. Louise rolled her hips slightly. She cupped her own breasts and presented those beautiful pink tips to these men as she looked up. Then she took the two condoms and cried out, “Catch.”

Of course, both of them didn’t catch them the first time. Dan rolled his eyes, and Louise smirked at him. Dan reached down and snatched his package from the floor. Phil had successfully diverted his package from his flailing hand to the bed.

Louise drew a deep breath. She said softly, “Let’s get these pants off, yeah?”

She watched as Phil’s throat bobbed. He sat on the bed. When Dan balanced one thigh against the piano as he unbuttoned his jeans, Louise coughed and said, “No.. You on the bed, as well.” She motioned to the space next to Phil. Dan glanced at her as he shuffled to the bed, one hand on his pants’ hem. Phil stopped unbuttoning his own and shifted away across the bed. Louise grabbed a bottle of lube off the table.

“Now,” whispered Louise, as she approached. “Legs off the side, crosswise, please.”

She shifted her weight from leg to leg. The blue silk sparkled in the amber lamp’s glow as it swung against her knees. Dan and Phil stopped for a moment, the tight fabric sliding down thighs, and she smiled at them both. 

Phil jerked the pants off quickly, while Dan slid his pants off gently. Dan kept his underwear firmly against his stomach, but Phil pulled his boxers down as soon as his pants were gone. Phil flung the boxers away and lay down across the bed. From this position, Louise towered over him. What a difference! Now it was she was who in a position of overlook. From the bed, Phil smiled softly. He folded his hands against his ribs and waited. As soon as Dan caught her attention, she pointedly looked at Phil’s naked body and then looked solidly at Dan’s waistband. Sighing, frowning a bit, Dan lifted his hips and wriggled out of the shorts, pushing them with his foot against the nightstand. He rested with his hands against his outer thighs. 

Louise walked closer to the bed. When she leaned down over the two men, her breasts full and plump in the air as they swung out a bit, Dan couldn’t stop staring at them. Louise dropped the braid down her bare back in a tickle of sensuous delight. She breathed out slowly, and whispered, “Do you trust me to have a feel?”

Dan grinned, licked his lips and moved his body salaciously. He watched her jiggle above them, so Louise deliberately caused a little bounce that caused his penis to swell a bit more. Phil smiled and his throat bobbed. Louise ran her hands down the outer swell of her hips, and watched the blood pulse more strongly in Phil’s penis. He had told her that Dan was a breast man, which was proving true, but Louise’s inner flesh was burning with the knowledge that Phil’s condoms had extra lube. She remembered him manhandling her, gripping her, and pushing against her hips as he offered her to Dan’s mouth earlier. Oh, God, how she hoped he had delights to show her.

Louise leaned farther over the two of them. The lubricant was slick between her fingers. She put the bottle back on the nightstand. She ran her left hand down Dan’s torso, and her right hand down Phil’s torso. She played with their nipples, stroking harder and harder, watching Dan’s bright red spots grow larger and darker, while Phil’s nubs became even more stiff, poking from his chest sharply. Phil’s hair was luxurious. The hair on his chest was rough and scratchy. Louise traced his dark line of hair from his belly button to his groin. Dan had a soft lower belly covered with fine hair, like baby’s breath. 

When she touched them each in hand, feeling the swollen skin of each penis and weighing each member in her well-oiled fingers, Louise was glad that she was standing and they were lying across the bed. She would have been intimidated if they had been standing, dangling and half-hard in front of her. Even worse would have been the nervousness bubbling within had they asked her to drop to her knees. Some men wanted the mouth as soon they could get it. Louise had racked her brain for all the different positions they might ask her to accomplish. On one’s knees was such a vulnerable position for a woman, filled with trust, waiting for interaction. 

Now Louise strove to justify Phil and Dan’s trust in her, that way she had asked them to splay themselves out naked and be with her in this moment. She watched their faces move through expressions of pleasure -- Dan biting his lip, Phil wincing slightly -- as she explored this most private area. Dan parted his thighs for her as she cupped his sac and ran her fingers underneath the shaft. Phil crossed his knees and the great girth bobbed as Louise rubbed him from one side to another. 

They were two men. They were different in what they liked. While she re-lubed her hands, Louise spread her hands out and silently measured. Dan’s penis was roughly the length of her entire index finger to the joint of her thumb. Phil’s penis was a tad longer, from her middle finger to the heel of her hand, but gloriously wider and thicker by half. Both of them were uncut. 

Dan liked his foreskin thrust against the shaft in long sure strokes, until Louise’s wrist ached. Phil seemed to love it when she moved her fist in deep tight moves down against his head and toward the base. 

Louise stood above them until her knees ached from standing in the same spot, and each of the men had added some length and girth as they hardened further. True to Dan's observation, Dan distended in length a bit while Phil mainly swelled upward into an angle against his stomach using what he already had. The soft musical sounds barely masked the gasps and moans in the room. 

When Louise stepped back, she let go and said softly, “You can put them on now.”

While both Dan and Phil trembled to tear open and roll down the condoms over themselves, Louise took another great step back. Her heart was pounding. They were at a juncture, a definitive line, gliding down a slope of intimacy that passed from one land into another land. She watched as they rose up and stood together. Phil gripped Dan’s shoulder and kissed him along the jaw and then they turned and kissed each other, naked and shining from shoulder to hip. 

The moment they turned to her again, Louise dropped the skirt to the floor. It bloomed around her ankles, and she lifted one leg and drew the other one out to her left, kicking the fabric underneath Dan’s bed. Now all that was left was her lacy underwear and black stockings, held up with black garters. They were a pain to maneuver around in the toilet, but Louise loved the way her black boy short underwear flared out and then snapped in place against her legs. Her thighs looked slimmer after being set off by the square edge of the silk and the pale black elastic top, its band two inches of shimmering delight. Louise didn’t wear them nearly often enough. She adjusted her left strap and heard Phil gasp a little bit. Louise smiled to herself. When she glanced up at him, Phil was blinking rapidly. She looked to Dan. He swallowed tightly. 

That hard sharp knife sank into the center of her stomach again. Dan swayed closer until Louise could count all the freckles on his cheeks. Louise stared at them, the scent of him in her nostrils, the muscles rippling so close she licked her lips unconsciously. 

Dan dipped and pressed a kiss to her lips, seeking. She let him in. She kept her eyes open as his eyes slipped shut. Louise didn’t want to miss a moment of seeing his lids flutter lightly as they sucked and tasted each other. When she drew nearer to him, she felt the tips of her breasts lightly brush his rib cage. His smooth skin rubbed rather than brushed as Phil’s hairy chest had done. He gasped into her mouth. The smell of his breath was distinctly Dan, an undercurrent of mint toothpaste and the scotch he drank earlier, and something else that made Louise’s nipples tighten against him. His fingers lightly ran up and over the apples of her cheeks. 

Suddenly Louise felt his thighs part and she stepped between them, went up onto her tiptoes, her cheeks flushed, her chest flushed, each breath lightly bridging the gap between them. Her ears were burning. Her toes stretched. The braided hair brushed her bare ass as she tipped back and kissed him deeper, drawing a hand up his biceps and collarbone, and wrapping her fingers around the nape of Dan’s neck to steady herself. 

“On your back,” he muttered roughly against her lips, and she stepped back and swallowed. His eyes followed her movements as Louise smoothed her palms against the outside of the boy shorts she wore. When she felt a pair of hands on her hips, she shivered involuntarily and half-turned to find Phil standing close. It was Dan who took advantage of her surprise to grip her thigh and push her down toward the bed. 

She realized that Phil was already tugging at her underclothes, and she moved her hands against his fingers, murmured, “No, no, no.”

Phil stopped, panting, as he stood next to her. His fingers moved just beyond the silken panties. Dan sank on the bed next to her, kissed her lightly, massaged his hand over her breast. 

Louise took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She pushed Dan away, and reached for the clips of the garters that held up her luminous black thigh-highs. As each clip came loose, she wriggled the belt to the side a little more. The belt came off first, and then Louise shimmied the black shorts down over her butt and upper thighs. She toed her heels off with a kick and a thunk. She slide the underwear down over her knees and ankles, and then wriggled her toes as she kicked it away. The loosened garter belt was easy. It hit the soft blue fabric of the skirt a moment later. 

She moved to roll down the stockings. But Phil’s hands were already there. He stopped her silently, his long fingers reaching down the inside of her left calf and thigh to curl underneath the wide seam at the end. Louise stilled, staring as he pulled. He pulled the soft fabric off and down in a single movement, placing a kiss on her knee as he went. The other stocking went the way of the first a few seconds later. By this time, Phil was on his knees. 

As he looked back up at her, his eyes blinking rapidly and his hands parting her knees, Louise was warm and aching. She could feel all the loose movement between her legs. He moved her thighs together and lifted them. Dan took her underneath her elbow and balanced her as he moved a pillow beneath Louise’s hips.

She yelped in surprise. They both stopped, Phil on the floor between her knees, Dan clutching her hip. “S’kay, okay.... alright then,” she murmured. She was so breathless the words were almost incoherent. 

“Yeah?” questioned Phil lightly. Louise swallowed and then nodded. Phil brought his hand just inside her thigh and pressed lightly up toward her privates, and then Dan looked at her again, and she nodded at both of them slowly. When Louise leaned back, she took a deep shuddering breath. 

Louise tilted her hips back and up, curling toward the men. Her thighs parted after a minute of indecision. Unconsciously she kept trying to swing them shut. A hand began to stroke her inner thigh. She closed her eyes. She tried to pretend that things were different, that they were in bed with a thin, toned model, not her great blob of a body. _Don’t move,_ her mind whispered. _What if you jiggle too much? What if they realize how sweaty you are, how disgusting?_

She felt fingers slide up her thigh, and touch her just softly between her legs. She felt herself unfurling deep within. Louise swallowed. She peeked an eye open and watched Phil lick his lips, bite his lower lip. He pressed his forefinger against her heat and smoothed in a small circle. Phil looked up at Louise and his tongue wet his lips silently as he looked back down at her mound. Louise was straining and staring as he pushed forward slightly with his hand, maneuvering his finger against her. When it sank in, she gulped and then helplessly moaned, and without looking up at her again, he smiled. Louise felt him twist and move her within, probing the skin, testing the resistance. He moved the pads of his fingers slowly. Louise gasped, and when she did, her own hands fisted into the sheets. 

“Yeah?” Louise nodded quickly to Phil. “Deeper?” Louise nodded again.

Phil’s second finger sank deeply into her. 

On the other side, she felt Dan kissing her slowly on the hip. Then, from the other direction, came a thumb pressing directly into her clitoris. Phil’s fingers slid out of her as he pressed on her public bone. Then Dan’s forefinger replaced Phil’s curling touch, quicker and lighter, more tentative on the inner folds. But unlike Phil, he spread her open with his thumbs. Phil began to roll her hood in small circles. 

“Is this good?” Louise nodded tersely at Dan. “More pressure, less?” She moved her hand to press a good instance on the back of his hand and guided him in his exertions.

Louise’s eyes drifted shut again. She concentrated on the sensations, and gasped when it doubled, as Dan’s middle finger pressed inside her, as well. Phil rubbed in circles, faster and faster, outside. Dan began to move his hand up and down. The long muscle of his forearm flexed against the inside of Louise’s knee. Phil briefly dipped his fingers back into her, fighting with Dan’s hand, switching and switching, and then incredibly Louise felt them both inside. Four strong fingers made a sound which was raucous, dirty, thrilling. 

Louise’s hips rolled of their own accord. Dan kissed her on the hip again. Phil leaned higher, kept his hand firmly on her thigh, and wrapped a leg around one of her calves. Now on the right, she couldn’t swing her leg shut. Dan caught on to Phil’s intent, and her left leg was soon clamped in his firm embrace. 

For a moment, all movement stopped. _They’re checking to see if I’m okay with this restraint_ , though Louise drowsily, her mind struggling to rise beyond her body. Louise groaned a bit. She unclenched her hands and ran her fingers through Phil’s hair and then through Dan’s. Then Dan’s hand sped up, working her delicate inner folds, and Phil began to swing up and down on her pleasurable spot outside. 

“Tell us if you want us to stop,” murmured Dan, and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t even focus on words. Her hand found Phil’s ribs, but Dan’s neck. She tightened her grip on both of them and squeezed. Phil’s thin torso pressed closer to her. Dan bent down and suck softly into her hip.

The feel of Dan’s tongue on her skin caused a sensation overload. She bent her head back, felt the pillow arch into her lower back and carry her upwards toward their hands. From far away someone was continually saying, _mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm, mmm-hmmm_ and Louise realized it was her own voice. The heat was in her fingers and her toes, across her breasts, at the soft juncture of her thighs. The storm built and built and built until she dug her nails into Phil’s ribs and Dan’s shoulder. “Please, please,” she gasped. “God, yes, right there-- yes, hm-mm!”

Dan’s fingers plunged in and out at a rapid rate. Phil stopped twisting and rolling her clitoris, instead squeezing and pressing it hard down into her pubic bone and then back up. Everything broke. The contractions were tight and hard. She could feel her muscles massaging Dan’s long fingers, stroking and milking. Dan pressed deeply into her. Louise panted and gasped. Phil gripped her hard at the top of her thighs, rolling and squeezing again against her sensitive mound. She moved helplessly against them as they fucked her through it. 

When it was mostly over, Louise sighed out very deeply and relaxed her bottom against the pillow. She felt Dan pull his fingers from her body and then a strange suckling noise. When she opened her eyes at them, Phil was licking her essence from Dan’s fingers, rolling his tongue around Dan’s middle finger with a smile. They caught her looking at them through dazed eyes and then their smiles bloomed for her. 

“Well done,” whispered Dan.


	8. Chapter 8

Dan pulled himself up toward her, stretched out at her side. Phil flopped onto the other pillow, threw an arm over his head and snuggled his butt down into the bed next to her. Louise lay the back of her hand on Phil’s flat belly and curled her other hand up against Dan’s sloped jawbone. For some time, there was only the sound of her panting breath returning to normal and the sensation of Dan’s rough jaw nuzzling into her fingertips.

“Well, that’s that,” she said quietly. Dan blinked slowly and then fought to hold back a laugh. Louise held in a small laugh, and ended up with tears leaking out of her eyes. “Sorry, sorry,” she murmured, her voice high and squeaky, “that’s like... I've just... I’ve just found the best deal at Primark, _everything's done_! I can drive home now!” Dan’s high laughter rolled over him helplessly, and for a moment, they were laughing in the bed. Even Phil squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. 

It took a moment for Louise to recover. She wiped her eye with a corner of her finger. Then something else caught her attention. She began to twist and move her hips down into the pillow below her waist. Louise could feel her long braid dragging between her shoulder blades. It only served to remind her that she had worked up a sweat, trickling into the valley between her ribs and dripping from her curled back. She flattened herself and tried to wick away the moisture. It made her uncomfortable. She could feel slick between her legs, and Louise was also a bit afraid that the smell was off. 

“You alright there?” whispered Dan, touching her ear with one finger.

She nodded, and continued to scoot. “Don’t budge up, I just -- there’s sweat everywhere, I’m afraid. I’m just hot, y’know.”

Dan stiffened next to her. _Oh, no, I’ve offended him!_ Louise stopped moving instantly. 

Dan suddenly reached across her and lifted her leg on the opposite side. He rolled her so easily that Louise was shocked. Her breasts and belly flopped into the space between them, but Dan was curling. His long thigh parted her legs and raised her leg further. With a sharp, hard thrust, he entered her. Louise gasped out loud, the feeling exquisite and hot, Louise overwhelmed by her body’s intensely pleasurable reaction to his movements. Dan thrust several times, rapidly, his chest striking her breasts as his hands gripped her hips. The shallow entry was quickly subsumed by deeper and deeper penetration. 

When he was almost fully seated, he rolled her onto her back in the space they had just occupied, her hips firmly up on the pillow again. Dan rested on his elbows for a moment. Phil cried out, “ _Dan!!_ ” It was high-pitched in shock.

Louise closed her eyes and moaned, throwing her head back and arching her back into Dan’s bed. When she could lift her head again, Dan leaned up on his hands and ground himself slowly into her, as deep as he could go. She felt her thighs and knees jerk as her clit was pressed into her pubic bone. 

She turned her head to Phil, who was staring at her. He moved his lips silently, rubbed a hand down her bicep to her elbow, and then drifted his fingers down to her hip as his gaze followed. He watched Dan slowly rotate his hips rhythmically again. He looked somewhere between murder and confusion. 

”Louise?” he murmured. “All right, there?” When she nodded at him, blinking slowly, Phil looked angrily at Dan, lips pressed together. “You bloody _goddamn_ idiot!” Louise blinked at him again as his voice dropped an octave into a gravelly low flat tone.

“No, she was hot again,” answered Dan, his voice a bit strained as he slowly thrust into her up and down once, “Calm your tits. She said she was hot again. She’s hot again--” Dan’s voice trailed slowly away as Louise watched him realize that he’d been very quick in his action and had broken the chain of assured consent, “Hot again, and the way she was writhing--” 

Louise smirked at him. His movement stopped and his eyes squinted. Louise could feel his breath puff against her face. “Right, Louise?” he said. “I mean, yeah?” Suddenly he was whispering, “Oh Jesus on a fucking tricycle--”

Louise wrapped her thighs around his hips, raised her pelvis at an even sharper angle and fought the pleasure that swamped her lower regions as she twisted her ankles together behind him. It prevented Dan from withdrawing. She felt him try, again and again, to pull from her. He was softening deep within. Louise shook her head, “No, no, no...” But even that Dan interpreted as a horrible reaction to her position, and he whimpered as he struggled in her arms. She wrapped her arms firmly around his shoulders and pulled him down to her. Louise said quietly, “Stop trying to go. Come back.”

With his face close to her, she saw the bright shiny brown eyes pinch shut in fear, and she said again, “Come back. I want you to come back. Please come back.”

She pulled him to her body, belly and all, trying not to care what he thought of her lumps and bulges, and reached for one of his hands as he leaned back and away. She placed his hand on her breast, smoothed his palm in small circles, and he was leaning down into her shoulder then. He said softly against her shoulder, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Dan,” she said firmly, “It’s alright. I’m alright.” She blew some of her bangs out of her face with a puff of breath, only to feel a hand smoothing it back into the rest of her hair. She looked quickly at Phil. His own tight expression was filled with worry. They were both so worried about her. As if Louise were porcelain, as though she would break at the merest shake.

“Dan,” she tried again, and had to get his attention. He looked at her sheepishly. “I was hot,” she explained, “but not inside, not hot the way you mean... While that was unexpected, it felt good. You’re stirring me. It was just-- It was a shock at first.”

His hand curled onto her breast, and for several long moments, he was completely still, leaned on his one elbow, leaned away from her, even as she had him confined in the circle of her legs. Phil rubbed his shoulder and kissed him there, and Dan actually sniffled a bit then, and Louise struggled a bit as she leaned up to kiss him softly on the cheek.

She moved her body against him, felt his fingers curl at her breast and a corresponding ache tug between her legs. Phil was close at her side, so she curved to the side against his thighs, and moved against his softened penis as well. With slow, gently curving strokes, she pushed herself up and out, rocking Dan deep inside in the cradle of her hips and brushing her thigh and hip against Phil’s crotch. 

“I’m actually glad,” said Louise. Rock, rock, rock with her hips in the slowest rhythm she could muster. “At the rate we were going, nobody’s appendage was ever going to be in anybody’s orifice.”

When he smiled, Dan took over. He slid slowly in and out, again and again, tilting her hips with one hand and rubbing softly on her breast with the other. Next to her, Louise felt Phil’s member stiffen and pulse against her. She slowed Dan’s movement with some slight of movement of her own, before he began to strive toward a goal. Instead Dan settled into a relaxed pace. Louise’s aching body was soothed and aroused, but the heat was tempered by their gentle breathing. 

With one hand cupped to Dan’s cheek, Louise curled her other hand against Phil’s jaw. Phil moaned a little as he snuggled into the bed next to her. “I do have a question, though,” Louise asked. 

“Hit me,” said Dan.

Louise lowered her long lashes and sucked in her upper lip quickly. She drew a long breath before she asked. It was embarrassing. She was tempted to ask _don’t laugh_ , but both of them were watching her with smiles, not concern. She coughed lightly and Dan actually rocked back a bit. She asked, “How many are we allowed?”

Dan tilted his head one way, glanced at Phil, who shrugged in confusion at Dan as he leaned his head on one hand. Their attention turned back to Louise. “I mean... How many, you know, moments, are we each allowed?” Louise repeated. Dan pursed his lips and his eyes narrowed, and Louise felt herself wince slightly, and Dan’s hand bobbled off her breast. He leaned on his arms on either side of her ribs and slightly pushed in and out again. He was as steady as a metronome. But Louise couldn’t say it loudly. “You know, moments?” she tucked her head against her shoulder, and felt Phil’s warm breath hitch next to her cheek. “You know... Moments?” And then she jerked a bit up and down, flailed her arms for effect.

When she opened her eyes, Phil’s gaze was filled with such tenderness that Louise stared back at him with gratitude. “As many as we all want,” he said, and rocked forward on his elbow, and kissed her softly. When he drew back, Phil continued, “Unless you were mimicking a stroke, in which case, none, thank you.” Louise laughed, and Phil kissed the round shoulder she presented to him. 

Dan finally said, “Oh... Oh, yeah,” and he rocked forward with harder intensity. Louise gasped. “We’re going to fuck that pussy so hard, make you cum so many times, don’t you worry.”

Louise clenched her eyes shut. She fully admitted she’d always harbored a secret crush on Dan Howell, inaccessible and unattainable, and she cringed to think that he might say anything that would lessen that glorious fantasy in her mind. 

Phil’s consternation was instant. “Dan!!” he cried. 

Louise opened her eyes to find Dan’s face quirking at him. Dan leaned on one elbow, bobbing inside her to one side, and threw up a hand dismissively. “Oh my god, Phil. What?! You’ve said worse to me in the last twenty-four hours,” Dan snorted.

Phil rolled his eyes and stuck a tongue into his lower lip for a moment. “You idiot,” he said, “First of all, you’re making promises that I have to help you keep. Second of all, Louise doesn’t particularly enjoy that kind of talk.” When Dan stared at him blankly, Phil flicked his eyes to Louise and nodded. 

“No,” groaned Dan, looking back down at Louise, “No.. Noooo... _What!?_ ”

“I don’t,” murmured Louise. “Made a whole video with Jack Howard about sexy words that make me squirm a bit.”

Dan’s look of confusion slowly dissolved into one of horror. Louise drew her chin down into her chest and wanted to melt into the bed. “No, no, no,” he squealed quietly. “Fuck. Fuck me sideways. I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”

“Fake fan, Dan,” said Phil darkly. “Fake fan.” 

Dan narrowed his eyes. “If I wasn’t currently thrusting into our friend right now, I’d hit you.”

“Bring it on, Howell,” laughed Phil, and then turned his attention back to Louise. He leaned in and said, “List of awkward moments? Add two to the list of _awkward sexual moments_ , you mean.” Louise giggled a bit and she felt Dan hurriedly adjust his weight on his elbows. The warm feeling of his maleness stretched back and forth inside her all the way. She shifted and rolled her hips against him, and Dan exhaled with a grunt. 

Phil asked her, “So no dirty talk at all, right?”

“No,” considered Louise seriously, sliding her hand down his throat to his chest and caressing him between his male nipples in that shallow dip. “No, not completely. Like, if what Dan just said was x-rated, than I usually operate at about a PG-13 level. Does that make sense?” She rubbed Phil slowly and his eyes drifted shut as he nodded.

“So, how many are you to have?” Dan said. The bastard remembered! Louise turned her attention to him. His eyes sparkled beautifully in the faint light as he teased in a whisper, “ _How many earthquakes are allowed to shake your secret garden_?”

“You absolute shit,” she said and slipped her hips back down toward the pillow, straightening beneath him. He slid out of her most of the way. Dan tilted himself and whined low, struggling to stay inside. When he gave her an apologetic look, Louise tilted herself back up and open to him. Dan adjusted with two quick short thrusts. 

“Original question stands. I’ve had the one. I mean--” Her husky voice choked, “is it a case of evensies, or what?” Louise was genuinely curious. At the same time, she had a sense of her own stamina. The first orgasm had rocked her, the fear knocked away and replaced with warm relief and satisfaction, like a cat stretched out in the sunshine of an afternoon summer day. She didn’t know if she had it in her to go again, or even if they expected it of her.

Phil’s fingers touched the back of her hand and flattened her hand against his chest. His quick heartbeat thrummed beneath her palm. Louise turned to him again and he pressed her hand between the beating of his heart and his cold fingers. “We’ve got all weekend, after all,” he said. Louise felt heat pool low in her belly. Dan’s velvet movement ached deliciously. She closed her eyes at the thought of only one night begun. And they were still revealing pieces to her, her trust buoyed by both Dan and Phil’s concern for her.

Dan tilted her head back to him and she smiled as he dipped low to kiss her on the lips quickly. “Yeah,” he said. “As many as we want, and we’ve got plenty of time. Also, I feel like it’s my duty to warn you that Phil passes out within, like, five minutes of his particular moment.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Phil grit his teeth silently. “If you weren’t currently thrusting inside our friend, I’d hit you,” he mocked. Dan smiled, satisfied. Louise laughed and tucked an arm behind her head. Above her, Dan rocked slowly. His bare chest rubbed her breasts and ribs. Next to her, her fingers were twitching to slide down Phil’s torso. 

“Less bants, more threesome,” muttered Phil. He frowned at them. Louise burst into another stifled set of giggles, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. 

With that other hand, she dipped down below Phil’s waist and found beneath his belly button that large swollen length angled toward her. In time with Dan’s thrusts, she curled her fingers up and slide them around the head and down to his sac. As Dan parted her, she parted her fingers for Phil, palming him and then gripping him with her fingers. For a long time, the sound of breathing grew more labored in the room. When Louise leaned back on her arm and closed her eyes, she licked her full lips and felt them plump and swollen. When Dan moved, Louise moved. Phil moaned and kissed her harshly. 

Louise licked Phil’s neck and shoulder. Dan suckled at Louise’s breasts. Finally, Louise motioned at Phil, ordered him, “Flip around.” He stared at her uncomprehendingly, until she took her hand off him and twirled her fingers. “Thighs up here, if you want,” Louise said as she patted next to her head. 

Phil sat up and twisted his long limbs until he was stretched near them again. Louise pulled at his body until he was very close, and then gently nibbled at the skin beneath his privates, pulling his shaft and knob up into her mouth. Dan groaned and pressed into her steadily. With each thrust Dan pushed into her, Louise drew a breath and sucked Phil’s body into her mouth, rolling her tongue round and round in the same smooth motion as she rotated her hips for Dan below. It was so slow and unhurried. Phil buried his head into her hip. Dan buried his face in her shoulder. Louise and the men moved in a tight gentle knot for a long time.

It continued until Louise threw a leg up over Dan’s hips and he strove a bit faster. Then, in the midst of the wonderful hot warmth between her legs and the heavy weight of Phil in her mouth, was a sharper pain. Louise drew off Phil reluctantly. A line appeared between Louise’s brows as she struggled and then her cry of pain cut through everything. 

Dan leaned back and said, “What? Did I hurt you?”

“No, no,” groaned Louise, “sorry, sorry, cramp!” Her leg jittered out and she felt it kick all the way from the back of her calf to her toes. The pain burned down the back of her leg. The spasm in her toes was terrible. She pressed her foot flat onto Dan’s bed and swiveled her hips helplessly, seeking to escape the fierce cramp. It upset everything. Phil sat up and reached for her leg, while Dan pulled from her wetly, and balanced on his haunches between her knees. 

Louise winced. Phil found the spot on her leg and rubbed deeply but ineffectively. Dan brushed Phil’s hands away and began to work on the spot. “Oh God, yes,” murmured Louise as Dan’s fingers swept across her calf muscle again and again. “Oh my god, right _there_.” She panted in relief. The pain slowly dissipated.

When she stopped to take a breath, she looked up at him from between her fingers. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s alright, Louise,” Dan smirked. “You’ve just given me more positive feedback about one minute of massage versus the last ten minutes of actual sex.” Louise swept the hair back against her forehead and grimaced sheepishly.

He let go of her leg and looked up at Phil, tapping his fingers on his knee. “Stand up,” he said, and Phil slipped out of the bed, “get the floor pillow.” Dan looked down at Louise as Phil crossed over to the corner and retrieved a very large pillow. “You trust us?” he said as he kissed the inside of her wrist. Her pulse beat against his lips for a moment.


	9. Chapter 9

When Louise nodded, Dan pulled her up by her arms out of the tangle of sheets and then stood with her as Phil tossed the floor pillow onto the bed. Dan smoothed the sheets as straight as possible, kicked the first pillow away, and then straightened the floor pillow at the edge of the bed. He supported her down onto her back. This time, when Louise felt her body shift and tilt, she had very little control over how high her pelvis drifted. She stared at him from the steeper angle, her legs dangling off the side of the bed. 

Within a moment she struggled under the weight of her own bosom as all her flesh slid down against her throat. Louise couldn’t breathe. Did it count as autoerotic asphyxiation if your own tits choked you to death? Louise felt like a turtle flipped over. Before she could signal Dan for help, who had turned back to the nightstand and was lubing himself again, Louise felt Phil slide a pillow beneath her shoulders. The pressure rolled back into her torso. She smiled at his face, upside down as he kneeled above her head, and he kissed her with a soft pull at her lower lip as he drew away.

Dan approached her again, slowly, and draped himself over her. His shoulders pressed her down into the bed. The heat of him pressed deeply again and he blinked rapidly as he sank into her without preamble or warning. “Jesus Chr--” he choked out, before he caught his breath. Louise spread her thighs wider, and she felt him knead her soft inner skin with his fingers as he strained to find the right angle. “Too much lube?” he whispered, “I didn’t know if too much or not enough.”

“There can never be too much lube,” replied Louise, and she shifted her hips to bring him deeper. “Too much lube is like too much butter in a cake recipe.”

“Stop,” murmured Phil, “talk about cake, and you’re going to make me explode all over you.”

She grinned up at him, his upside down face now leaned back as Dan adjusted himself and balanced on his knees at the edge of the bed. “Speaking of which,” she said, and put a hand out in the air toward Dan. “Lube me up, please.” He quirked an eyebrow at her as he squirted a small dollop into her palm and she rubbed it with her fingers on that hand. 

“C’mere, love,” Louise said to Phil as Dan began a gentle rocking rhythm. Phil leaned back with his hands on his hips as Louise’s fingers explored his hanging maleness again, and she watched as his body stiffened and moved. She wanked Phil while Dan thrust into her. Louise felt her breasts bouncing with the increasing force of Dan’s thrusts, until suddenly he leaned back and instead of putting his weight on his palms, he grasped her breasts and squeezed them as he rocked, balanced with a tit in each hand. 

The feeling was exquisite. Louise couldn’t tell whether she was more aroused by Phil’s enjoyment of her handling or Dan’s continuing fascination with her breasts. She arched her back as Dan thrust rapidly several times. With one hand she pulled Phil toward her and sucked lightly at his tip. Dan’s rapid entry upset her balance and she spat Phil out with a groan.

“Sorry, sorry,” she whispered. “God knows, I’m not a porn star.”

“You’re so disappointing, Louise,” Phil replied. She peeked an eye at him and he was studying her critically. “You’re only having sex with Dan and I for the past hour, and he’s only inside of you to the point that he can’t function, and I’ve only been hard as a rock for the past few minutes. _So sad that you’re not a porn star._ ” One of his eyebrows shot up and he twisted his mouth in a half-smile, half-smirk. 

Louise batted at him affectionately and he squealed and skittered away, his shaft bouncing against his thighs. 

“Serves you right,” Dan murmured at him. He leaned deeply into Louise’s nipples with his thumbs and supported her breasts below the curve. Louise’s well-given assets were a joy to her for the second time during this experience. If she’d been smaller, she wouldn’t have been able to support his weight this way. 

Dan glanced quickly at Phil and then thrust down sharply. Louise gasped. Dan leaned forward at the greatest depth and swallowed Phil’s tip with a sucking pop. Louise blinked at them, and then grinned. “That was a porn star move, Dan! Well done!”

“Thank you,” he sighed, and set about his work again, striking her center harder and harder. Phil brushed a hand through his hair and rolled his eyes. 

Louise touched Phil again, running her fingers down him and tangling in the hair at the base, pressing his pulsing length against his pale stomach. She could see the vein in his pale shaft move as he hardened further. They moved together for several long moments.

Phil’s hoarse voice caught in his throat as he said to Dan, “Tell me.”

Louise could feel Dan delve as deeply as he could, and then Dan said with a hint of a groan, “Oh God, she’s so ample, Phil.” That word -- did it mean something horrible? For a moment Louise felt her stomach drop sickeningly, as her mind flew to reasons why he would say that. Then Dan dropped back onto his palms on either side of her ribs and drove in at a dizzying pace, and he told Phil, “Ample enough that you can feel absolutely _everything_ as you slide past, and Jesus, Phil, the clutch inside -- God, you’re going to love the feeling.”

Louise puffed air out of her nose, grabbed Phil roughly and thrust her hips up into Dan’s seeking strokes. Phil keened, his head thrown back. Dan bit his lip, his head thrown back. In the center, Louise reveled in it. She felt like a goddess, like these two attractive men were worshiping at her altar, but she had the privilege to receive it. She should have known they would be in her thrall. But her poor heart had never expected it, perhaps to be the thing in the darkness that they could tolerate, but never the creature they shared so openly.

Dan stopped steadily thrusting and snapped his hips wildly twice. The slapping sound was louder than the music. She reached up and bit into his lower jaw, straining to reach him, but he shook her away. Within a moment, he had pulled out of her. Louise writhed below him. Her body felt achingly empty without him. Dan panted above her as he leaned on hands and knees. From the corner of her eye, she watched Phil put both his hands on the top of Dan’s head and trace his hair down to the nape of his neck. Dan moaned and leaned into it.

When he opened his eyes, Louise thought he was crying. But she realized quickly that it was sweat gathered in the corners of his eyes, and along his hairline. He was damp all the way down his chest and to the straining length between his legs. Even as she watched him, his shaft slapped against his belly. Dan moaned again.

”I have to start running again,” he said sadly. Louise put a hand up to her mouth and tried to look away, but the laughter caught her unexpectedly and she shook helpless under the force of it. Her body was still aching. Dan had been rising to a point, and Louise’s body had slowly heated again. Perhaps she would have another mind-shattering dissolve. When Louise looked back at him, Dan was wiping his brow as he stood up. “ _God, I really need to start running again_.” he repeated. “You’re going to have to give me a minute.”

He walked to the gray half-circle chair in the corner of his bedroom and collapsed into it. Louise sat up on her elbows. She could feel the cool sheets against her own sweaty body, and she fanned herself with the nearest edge of cloth. Behind her, she felt Phil scoot back and lean on his bum to sit with his back against Dan’s headboard. She watched Dan stretch out his long legs and rotate his neck. Sprawled out, ankles nearly at the foot of the bed, and his body slid down to the point where the back of his head nearly touched the windowsill, Louise admired him in the soft amber light from the lamp. Louise looked back at Phil. Phil was leaned on one elbow and closed his eyes with a heavy exhale, his thighs crossed and one hand laying on his belly. They were both pools of light and dark, a rounded shoulder dropped here or there in the darkness, the bony curve of a hip rising sharply. 

Louise grabbed the sheet and tucked it around her in gentle drapes. Perhaps the darkness was enough to maintain this illusion of a goddess, giving her enough space to be soft and mounded in a way they would need.

The bed shifted as Phil got up and left the room. Louise looked over at Dan worriedly, afraid that something was wrong, but Dan mimicked a cup in his hand and drank from it. Sure enough, Louise heard the distant running of water from down the hall. As Phil padded back toward them, she heard his shoulder hit the door frame to the lounge and he cursed low under his breath as water splashed against one of the walls. 

“Oh dear, are we going to have to take you to A&E in the middle of the sex?” called Dan. He didn’t even lift his head from his collapsed state.

Phil shouted back, “No, because I used the plastic cups, you bloody bugger.” When he rounded the door, Louise leaned up to help him but he waved her away, setting the three cups on the nightstand. He handed Louise’s cup to her. The water was cool and calming in her throat as Louise watched him maliciously dangle it in the air above Dan, then mutter low under his breath, “Should throw it at you!” Dan narrowed his eyes at Phil. Phil finally set the cup down on the desk, and then walked back to the bed. In a moment, he was stretched out against the headboard again. Louise took another swallow of delicious water as she contemplated Phil’s sigh of satisfaction as he drank deeply as well. For a moment, they were all sipping and swallowing, gathering their breath and rehydrating.


	10. Chapter 10

When Louise’s cup was finished, Phil took it from her and set it empty on the far edge of the nightstand next to his. Dan drank his water in two or three great swallows, and then the half-full cup stayed on the desk as he caught his breath.

“Okay,” she said after several long moments, “if you’re going to run out of energy, me and Phil will just have to keep on without you.”

In the darkened room, Louise watched as Dan’s mouth lifted slightly on one side. She snuggled up the bed and wrapped her arm around Phil’s waist, leading him to slide an arm down her back to cup her bum. He kissed the top of her head. Below his navel, his penis began to shift with renewed need. Louise stared at it. Dan was hearty, but Phil’s girth was greater. Inside her tissues squeezed together unconsciously. 

“Yeah,” said Phil. “I’ll _fill_ her up.”

Louise buried her nose just beneath Phil’s nipple and giggled. She heard Dan’s groan from across the room. “Did you just...” 

“I did,” said Phil triumphantly.

“No. Phil. Stop.”

“That’s what Louise _won’t_ be saying,” Phil said. He sounded so light, just banting with his friend, and below her waist, his long fingers were delicately massaging and pulling at her bum. Louise curled her toes against the bed and kicked herself higher and closer to Phil. She peeked up at him. Phil’s eyes were half-closed, and his dark hair was twisted and wild.

“Louise,” whined Dan, “come over here and hop on.” When she looked at him, he was leaned slightly forward. He actually patted his lap. Louise narrowed her eyes at his thighs, golden brown in the flickering candlelight from the desk, and the whites of his ankles peeking out of the darkness below the lamplight blocked from the bed. He was skinny and would not support her. Louise shook her head. “Louise, come on.” The second entreaty was higher pitched and stretched out. 

“No, absolutely not,” Louise turned her head back into Phil’s side. He clutched her strongly. “I’ll crush you.”

“You will not!”

“You don’t know, Dan,” Louise scoffed. “Bruise you up like you’ve been in a car accident.”

Phil’s hand squeezed extra hard, and when she looked at him, he waggled his eyebrows at her. Louise smiled and buried her face in his shoulder. “Louise,” snapped Dan. Louise felt Phil’s square shoulder shift away underneath her and she thought momentarily of keeping him. She could force him to stay in this bed with her with the lightest of pulls. But her heart remembered Dan’s gentle voice as he arranged her to his liking minutes ago. How many times had Phil heard that, when it was meant with the sincerity of a lover and not with the urgency of a man who wanted sex? When he slid out from under her, Louise grabbed the extra pillow and turned halfway down the bed. She put her knees up on the floor pillow. 

Phil rose slowly, and as Dan’s eyes tracked to the left, Louise caught a quick smile and then it disappeared into a slow smirk that squeezed his eyes into slits. “Goddammit,” he pronounced solemnly.

Phil walked to him and batted his hands away as they tried to stop his approach within reach. “You want this,” Phil said as he put both hands on either side of the gray half-chair. Their reflection in the mirror meant that Louise could see Phil’s lowered lids. Louise smiled as she watched Phil lean on his arms and study Dan teasingly. Dan crossed his arms and tilted his chin down, tongue poking around inside his mouth. 

“When I could have a lovely lady on my lap? Keep dreaming, Phil.”

“Oh, you’re excited for me,” Phil insisted, leaning forward while Dan tossed his head back. The smirk wavered back into a small smile, and then Dan rolled his eyes.

Finally Phil swung his legs outside Dan’s thighs and slipped Dan’s knees together, folding his limbs and torso onto the invisible planes of Dan’s lap. Louise watched as Dan grunted and slid his knees farther toward the bed. It only allowed Phil more stability on Dan’s thighs and he settled in, the white cleft of his bum disappearing into the darkness. 

Phil executed a small roll of his hips, and Louise heard Dan’s quiet groan. Slowly he picked up speed, those wide hips rolling and flexing. Louise stared at them. It was a dance they were both familiar with; Dan almost instantly ran a hand down Phil’s back and sought the open cleft of Phil’s arse, dipping his fingers into it to clutch and spread, until he yelped suddenly when Phil bent his torso and his hands spread Dan’s neck away from his shoulder for kisses and nips that ran down toward Dan’s rib cage. 

Louise watched. At first, they seemed to be content with each other, and then the heat would take over. She was never sure if Phil was in control, or if it was Dan, or if they easily handed off the power to each other again and again. Phil either held Dan in place or was clinging to him as Dan thrust upward. Dan either moaned under Phil’s ministrations or used the chair to set Phil off-balance. By the time they were both panting, they were also kissing intermittently, ranging from long slow kisses to love bites that wrecked them both. If the contentedness appeared, Phil would slow down and slowly wipe Dan’s hair back from his forehead, and Dan would chuckle quietly before kissing Phil so tenderly that Louise’s heart hurt. When one of the men leaned in, his voice was so low and gentle that Louise couldn’t catch the words. When they rubbed against each other in increasing fervor, Louise was excited by the quick yelps and moans.

Watching the muscles finally pitched her over the edge. Phil, moving atop Dan, would flex down and then forward, and the outside of his thighs would tighten from knee to hip. The concave dip rippled from Phil’s knee to his hip. Meanwhile, with a heady rhythm in use, Dan’s ankles would strain and flex upward, bouncing his knees. There was only so much light in the room and it seemed their musculature flowed into light and sank back into darkness with rich savory movement. Louise’s body reacted to it.

Louise pulled up the sheet to make a gap and touched herself gently. She rubbed in a circle as Phil rotated his hips on top of Dan. The sounds and sight combined to make her fingers warm and wet within herself. She had been well-lubed with the many attentions of the night, but now all Louise had was the memory of Dan rising higher within her a brief while ago. Louise batted slowly against her clit and mount, teasing the sensation on the edge. She closed her eyes and remembered the heft of Phil’s penis between her fingers, the swollen shaft in her mind’s eyes as she pressed in with a moan. Her fingers were delicate and then rougher. Phil moaned across the room, and the memory of the line of his back caused her to press her fingers deeply. The wet sounds she was making counteracted against the smooth brush of skin on skin coming from the chair. 

When her eyes opened, the sounds had lessened and she watched Phil come to a slow stop. He turned his head slightly, and spoke over his shoulder, looking at the piano, “Louise -- you come join us.” _They had heard her! Shit!_

“No, I can’t,” she replied. Louise tucked a large strand of loose hair away from her face and tried to guide it back to her messy braid, as she puffed her breath out. “Keep going, boys.”

Phil wouldn’t take no for an answer and he wriggled farther back and to the side, leading Dan’s hands to come over his hips and forcibly hold him still. “Bloody hell,” sighed Dan as he grimaced and Louise saw his fingers dig into Phil’s hips. When she could see past Phil to Dan, Louise smiled. He was flushed and sweaty, but his eyes were bright and sparkling in the darkened room. “Phil, if you fall off, I swear to God--”

Phil ignored his fussing. “Come join us, Louise! Come on now!” When she shook her head again, he said, “We’ll make it work. I’m just on top of him, he’s not inside of me or anything. We have all these different ways.” He steadied a hand on Dan’s forearm and looked back down at him. “It’s like two Jedis. Dueling. In combat. No!” Phil raised one finger into the air. “It’s like a Sith lord challenging a Master Jedi! You can be Rey! Tip the balance to the light, padawan!”

Louise heard Dan sigh very heavily. With one hand, he shoved Phil to the side, met her gaze, and then gestured at Phil’s entire torso with one upraised hand and a single eyebrow twitching high on his face. Louise turned her face into the bed and giggled. When she peeked at him again, Dan was gesturing even more strongly as Phil demanded of him, “ _What?!_ ” Phil swallowed and tried to twist in Dan’s lap to look at her. 

Dan finally pushed him off, leading to a rather ungainly stand by Phil, who teetered on one foot for too long. Dan stood quickly and moved his hands on either side of his friend, but Phil recovered. “Thank God,” Dan muttered as he finally righted himself. Then he leaned into Phil and dropped his voice again. Louise moved her hand out of the sheets and clutched it to her breasts as they leaned in. Phil glanced back at her, and she heard Dan say something else while leaned into Phil’s side, motioning to the desk. They looked at each other, nodded.


	11. Chapter 11

Dan approached his bed. This time there was a glint in his eyes that was uncompromising. Without breaking eye contact with her, he pulled the floor pillow from between her calves, and then arranged it close to the edge of the bed. Without asking, he reached and grabbed her legs by the back of the knees and moved Louise up and onto the pillow. Louise had long thought she was afraid to show either of the men her mound of a belly and thick thighs, but as Dan spread her open, jerking her knees high up near his ribs, she wasn’t thinking about what she looked like from his perspective. She was warm and wet, that heated pierce rolling in waves between her legs. 

Dan leaned down and shoved a pillow beneath her shoulders again. Then, with one hand on her pubic bone, he leaned off the bed and brought the bin closer. Louise heard the metallic clink as he set it on the floor and felt her nipples grow tight and erect, the red flush sweeping down her chest to her belly. To have a bin near usually meant that a man anticipated having to sling something into it.

Dan bit his lower lip. Phil appeared over his shoulder and handed him something that made him let her go. Louise tried to close her legs as Dan rolled a fresh condom on his body, but Phil was suddenly there, his hands keeping her thighs spread as he leaned over her across Dan’s body. Phil’s fingers were warm with lubricant. He dipped into her quickly and then rubbed the inside of her thighs and her engorged labia. When he was done, he looked at her. All Louise could see was the black swallowing his wonderfully light eyes, and his fingers trembled as he rubbed and stroked. 

Dan moved his hands down over Phil’s wrists and stilled on Louise’s swollen mound. She gasped as they simply stared at her for a moment, before she put her own hands down over theirs. “Go on then,” she said. 

Dan straightened, and his hands on the back of her knees pulled her high and to the edge. The weight of her breasts were heavy, but Louise was concentrating on the tilt of her own pelvis. When Dan pushed close, Phil stepped back to the desk again. A moment later, Dan’s tip was circling her and then he sank in one side and moved around to the other side in a slow circle, sinking deeper. 

Louise set her chin to her chest and pressed down with her thighs against Dan’s knees as they dipped into the mattress. Dan muttered, “Fuck--” as he set a quick pace. No more slow measured whispered strokes, but a quiet driving inside of her. Dan’s penis was moving in and out of her body at a steady gait. Louise moaned low in her throat and her eyes drifted shut. 

When she could take a deeper breath, she wrapped a hand against Dan’s hip. She felt the faint tracks of stretch marks -- of which she was intimately familiar, and the thought shocked her out of the moment -- until she noticed his obvious discomfort and grimace, and then she curled her hand up and over into the small of his back. She could feel him flex as he moved inside deeply. It reminded her of Phil’s back clenching in the light reflected in the mirror. Louise arched herself up to him.

As her hands tightened on the small of his back, suddenly she felt another pair of hands bend her hands away. Louise’s eyes drifted open and watched Dan thrust, eyes closed, deeply moving, lost in his own mind. Beyond his shoulder Phil’s head closed the space between Dan and the edge of her vision. 

Phil drew his hands back up, and then Louise felt something happen on the other side of Dan. There was a buzzing noise. Dan startled. “Fuck,” Dan moaned again, and then leaned his head to her shoulder. Now she could see more of Phil working his hands, the bed bowing under their weight, as he leaned closer to Dan.

“Is this good, you okay?” Phil whispered into the shell of Dan’s ear, and Louise felt Dan’s groan against her shoulder as he nodded quickly.

Phil breathed out twice, and moved again behind Dan. “Oh shit,” Phil cried as he leaned his head to Dan’s shoulder. The buzzing sound increased. Dan slowed to a stop inside of her. Louise panted, feeling Dan leaned into her, and further Phil leaned into Dan. She was so close to the side of Phil’s face on the other side that her breath moved his hair just in front of his ear. When Phil moved hesitantly again, his entire body draping over Dan, and his hand moving below Dan’s hips, Dan cried out and Phil choked out, “Fucking hell.” 

Phil wasn’t inside of him, Dan had said that much, but Louise could certainly feel Phil’s thighs against her ankles. He was mounted to him, though, and just the joint movement was enough to send them both dazzlingly close to the edge. The buzz continued from far away. Louise thought of the sex toys on the desk. Her own toys at home were used well and frequently, especially since her divorce, and her favorites were the small vibes that worked her clitoris and outer lips. She shifted her thighs and tilted herself, feeling the echo through Dan’s perineum, where Phil pressed it, massaging Dan’s prostate from the outside. 

Phil moved. The toy pressed harder when he did. Dan stiffened, and then his maleness thrust into her. Louise’s eyes widened as she accepted the full measure of his movement. With a small jerk, she batted herself back at him. Dan trembled and then moved back, flexing his hip up into Phil’s pelvis. When he moved, Phil wailed low and deep under his breath.

It was like an electric current. Phil, Dan, her. Her response, Dan, back to Phil. Phil, Dan, her. Her, Dan, Phil. 

Louise could feel Dan’s knees pressed to the pillow below her. His hips were caught between her cradle and the wide arc that Phil was forcing into his posture. Louise’s left arm ended up wrapped around Dan’s neck and shoulder, and her right arm clutched at the back of Phil’s elbow.

The current sped up to what it had been before Phil had pressed himself into their joined bodies. Louise pressed her cheek to the side of Dan’s cheek, felt his moans against her shoulder, and then wriggled up so that he had better access to her depths. The resistance of her body to him was met with ever increasing intensity. Phil began to hold him still at the very end of each deep thrust. The toy he held was a dull distant sound of bees. Dan leaned down and put his cheek on her shoulder and slowly came apart. At first Louise was sure that it was just her own shaking, until Dan shuddered too strongly for her to think it was herself. 

Louise’s eyes popped open. Phil’s mouth was set in a tight press, his cheek on Dan’s shoulder. When he well and truly began to lose it, Phil leaned up and arched his back in a fast rhythm with the toy he was moving. Louise’s nails scraped his shoulder. Dan’s whimpers grew louder and his rhythm faltered a bit. Louise met Phil’s gaze over his shoulder, and for a moment they were so intimately connected with each other, that Dan’s approaching orgasm felt like a physical extension of themselves. 

Louise watched Dan’s eyes roll with pleasure as he shook his head back and forth helplessly against her collarbone. Phil pressed tightly, again and again, into Dan. Dan was on the edge. Louise struggled at the edge of the bed to find the leverage, and then her toes gripped the very edge. She pushed up with all her strength. When he thrust down again, Louise refused to go in tandem with Dan back down into the bed. She stayed arched a few inches above the pillow for several long moments. She began wiggling her hips mercilessly. Phil thrust, thrust, thrust. His elbow straightened harshly beneath her hand. Dan cried out and stiffened, the tremor running down his back and thighs. His chest rubbed deliciously against her breasts in a hot slick motion.

Louise deliberately squeezed her muscles inside quickly, once, twice, three times. He shouted and buried his head into her shoulder. Deep inside Louise felt him move under the onslaught of rushing heat. She closed her eyes again and tried to imagine him emptying inside of her. The thought carried her through it as he moved rapidly again, pinned between them, writhing.

When she let him go, her legs giving out from beneath her, both of them collapsed onto her. Louise felt her ribs creak under the weight of both Dan and Phil. Dan pounded into her several more times, then slowly died away. Phil had stopped moving altogether, a warm weight atop them both. Louise felt her knees stretch even further apart as Dan whined and panted as he stilled. Phil’s hand barely moved. The buzzing stopped. Louise heard Phil fumble something onto the nightstand and then he sighed and rested back against them, as luxurious as a cat. For several moments, she simply rested, spread open below Dan and Phil, her body trembling under the onslaught of desire.

Dan was boneless between them. It was surprisingly easy to move him, pliant and weak, away from her chest and then out of her. She wriggled him until he was ready to roll off. Dan raised his head and kissed her messily as he left, and Louise chuckled against his lips. When his hips struck the mattress next to her, long legs hanging off the side, Phil, too, collapsed on the other side. Shockingly against her right hip, Louise felt Phil’s penis still erect. Together the men rolled over to their backs, one on each side, panting. Louise lay on her back and blinked as her breathing tried to return to normal.

Together the three of them stared at the dim outline of Dan’s modern light fixture. 

Dan put his hands on his forehead. He was muttering low under his breath. Phil sighed deeply. Louise was hot and aching, herself awoken by their excitement, but she smiled slightly as she watched Phil twitch between his legs. From her left, Dan unrolled his condom, pinched its contents, and threw it into the bin. A moment later, Phil rubbed and stroked himself with one hand, the long shaft moving against his belly and thighs.

“Well done,” Dan said. His voice was hoarse.

Louise moved her head to Phil, and her face was pinched tightly as she held in her laughter. Phil smirked at the ceiling and did not look at her. “Every time,” he softly confirmed.


	12. Chapter 12

Louise stretched from ankle to hip to shoulder, flung out on the bed between Phil and Dan, and within herself felt the dull ache of renewed desire. She listened as Dan settled down, fingers tapping idly on his stomach, eyes half-closed. She had worried that she wouldn’t have enough energy for another round but all the stirrings had instead turned over an ember inside. Phil was yet ready. She glanced out of the corner of her eye. His maleness was sticking up from his belly at an angle. She frowned at the ceiling and considered her options. If he didn’t offer, she’d ask. If he declined, she’d live with it. Louise would wait until another opportunity. She had been so concentrated on Dan’s seeking, forgetting for a moment her own heavy need. Her legs and arms ached from all of their encounters, and truth be told, a little ache may keep her awake tonight. She might have to take some headache medication anyway. _It’s not the first time,_ Louise thought wryly, _I’ve been taken and then left wanting._

She smoothed the hair back from her mostly disheveled braid and turned to Phil. As the bed moved under her twisting body, she found him with his head already turned her way, studying her profile silently. When Louise opened her mouth to speak to him, he grinned at her and whispered, “Turn over.”

Louise was still atop the floor pillow. She lumbered herself over it completely and pulled it out from beneath her thighs. She stood up next to the bed and placed a hand on Dan’s leg to steady herself. He rubbed her wrist quickly as Louise turned around to face the bed again. She felt a little sense of repetition, with Dan and Phil so openly splayed out on either side of her as she stood above them. 

Dan pulled himself to the other side of the bed as Phil stood and answered, “You don’t mind it this way?” Louise shook her head at him, trailed her long nails down his curved jaw and pinched him on the chin. Phil smiled at her.

Dan dropped the floor pillow on the edge of the bed. He patted the area before the pillow and Louise stretched herself across it. She kept her feet on the floor as she rocked slightly from side to side. It was lascivious to have her bum arched into the air. Dan grinned at her. Louise tilted her head at him, her answering smile faltering as she realized that Dan was obviously waiting for something else. 

“No,” said Phil, “move more forward.” With one hand he pushed her arse lightly forward. Louise stretched forward to her tiptoes, and arched her back a little more. Phil said, “No, more forward than that. Here, let me help.” 

A moment later, his hands on her hips and he guided her forward and forward and forward. Louise’s feet left the floor. She couldn’t balance herself on the pillow and kept tilting forward. Dan continued grinning as he moved in front of her, spread his legs, and slid them beneath Louise’s shoulders and through to her ribs. Louise gripped his legs hesitantly. Phil adjusted her again, higher and higher in the air, until her legs dangled off the bed and her body tilted up at an obscene angle. 

On her back, she could feel the curve of a woman accepting a man into herself, but on her stomach, she was helpless to control it. Truth be told, it was very few men -- Phil, now, too -- who could coax her into rear mount. She trusted him completely. Louise felt the air strike her swollen mound as Phil stretched her open and then his fingers lightly touched her, rotating in and stroking her softly for a moment. 

Louise looked over her shoulder at him. Phil leaned down and kissed her on the small of the back, just above the heart shape of her bum. With his knee he nudged her thighs even farther apart. Louise felt completely vulnerable to him. Something must have shown in her eyes, because Phil murmured, “Not going to hurt you, love.”

“I know,” she assured him, and she felt the tension leave his hands. Louise turned her head forward and rested her chin on Dan’s thigh. She was already panting. 

Phil grabbed another condom from the bowl and rolled it onto himself quickly. Dan reached to the nightstand and handed Phil the lubricant, and a moment later his fingers were again stretching and pressing into Louise. She breathed out heavily against Dan’s lower stomach. His limp cock was at her throat, the slight hair on his thighs tickled her sensitive underarms. 

Phil twisted his fingers into her once again, and then made his entry with a small press of his hands to her lower back. Phil was a tad longer than Dan, not enough to make a great difference in forward movement, but he was incredibly wider. His girth swelled inside Louise. She gasped faintly against Dan’s navel. There was nowhere to go. Phil was filling her side to side as well. When he pulled out and pushed back in, she remembered Dan’s gentle strokes at the beginning. Phil had the same gentleness but now the pressure of his penis stroked her front wall in that spot that made Louise grit her teeth. 

“Oh God,” Phil moaned suddenly and stopped. He snapped his hips sharply once, and then groaned.

“I told you,” murmured Dan. 

Phil built a gentle rhythm. Dan supported her as she gasped and puffed out air when Phil pushed into her deeply. Louise felt the bones of her pelvis spreading as he worked. He rubbed her bum when he was able, reached a hand down and under and tickled her bottom. The hard nub swelled against his forefingers. 

She looked at Dan, and saw him grinning again. “Phil loves this position,” he said into one of her ears. The sweat was gathering between her shoulder blades as Phil pressed her there with his other hand, and held her, top and bottom. He worked Louise rapidly. 

Suddenly she knew what Dan wanted but was too exhausted or embarrassed to ask for. She said to him, “Budge down a little bit.” She placed his soft skin between her breasts. With her elbows on either side, Louise moved herself back and forth on Dan’s shaft. He groaned and threw his head back. Louise held Dan down, and Phil held Louise balanced on the floor pillow. 

Behind her Phil was breathing hard, so Louise tilted her pelvis up toward the ceiling, rose up on her knees, and welcomed him deeper. Phil began to moan. Dan yelped as his sensitive skin wasn’t ready for so much stimulation. _Later_ , thought Louise drowsily, _if he has the courage to ask, he’s going to want a proper titty-wank._ Her arousal rose and rose as she watched Dan reach for the lube to smooth his passage now between her breasts. 

Phil pushed harder. The fresh physical resistance stretched Louise down toward the bed. She gripped Dan more strongly and pushed down with her knees, and Phil cried out.

“Oh, God,” cried Louise, “oh, oh... God, yes, Phil, just there!”

Phil took it as incentive. His thin frame began to slap against her. Louise felt his hand move, and then with a soft movement up, Phil’s heavy sac slapped against her clit with each thrust. The sound and the feeling caused her eyes to roll into her head. Dan moved his hands over her forearms and Louise leaned down and put her forehead against his belly almost at his hip. His smell, and the sounds that Phil was making, were very stimulating, and she let herself rock away with it.

Louise yelped as he went deep.

“Are you, are you hurting?” murmured Phil, slowing down. Louise could tell by the tight cords of his forearms, straining in the corner of her sight, that he was struggling again. Dan’s words came back to her mind, how Phil hated to intimidate his partners in bed. Louise muttered a negative sound, reached a hand back and grabbed his bum, pulling him toward her. She might be sore in the morning but now everything was smooth and hot. Phil sucked her shoulder and bit slightly as he increased his tempo again.

Phil’s cock was completely filling her. Dan’s cock was rubbing between her breasts, the length of him as tender as crushed velvet. Louise felt her toes begin to curl in the empty air. Phil's thrusts weren't painful, but the impact of his body was enough to send her over the edge of some great barrier in her mind. She'd almost gone there with Dan. With each thrust, Louise was surrendering that part of herself to Phil. She leaned her knees in a crook on the bed and grasped her toes against Phil’s shins to push back against him. He cried out in surprise, and Louise smiled, as Dan gasped loudly with the increased momentum.

“Fuck,” muttered Phil, rhythm disrupted. “You scared me then.”

“Don’t knock him over, Louise,” Dan taunted. “He might never get up again.”

“He’d die of shame on the floor.” 

“The only sign of him would be that fantastic cock.”

“Dammit,” said Phil. He sounded very perturbed at all their banter.

“If we do this again,” Dan mock-whispered, “he’s not going to let us talk.”

“I’ll get the ball gags,” threatened Phil, and then stroked deeply again for the first time since they'd knocked him out of rhythm. Louise’s chuckle was drowned out by her gasp of heated longing as Phil moaned and threaded his fingers through her long blonde hair, using her head and spine as leverage, tugging gently. 

“Soon?” Dan whispered at her temple. “Close?”

Louise nodded, swallowed and tried to get back enough breath to speak. “Yeah, I’m almost there.” One hand reached back and trailed down Phil’s thigh. “If you could-- what you’re doing now is probably going to work. If you can keep going at it, just like that.”

Phil leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, “we’re video gamers. We play until we beat the level.” It was so absurdly sweet and nerdy, that Louise leaned into Dan’s stomach and laughed quietly. She felt Dan's sigh. But Dan massaged her shoulders as Phil leaned back up again and set his body at the same angle as he’d been. Slow and gentle, he pushed himself in and out, and Dan gripped her torso to hold her in tandem with Phil. 

He picked up speed, slowed, picked up speed again. For a few minutes Phil’s fingers, and his balls, met her mound underneath every so often. Louise let his movement take her over, forgetting what noises she was making or if she looked like a sausage stretched on the floor pillow between them. Louise groaned and threw her thighs wide, disengaging from Phil’s legs and wrapping her toes against the edge of the bed. The bed creaked dangerously. Dan pressed her shoulders down to his thighs. She found herself with heart pounding, Phil crying out loudly, her arms and legs aching, and then she held her breath and spiraled down into it.

She burst within, the quick contractions taking him in deeper. Phil leaned down and pressed his belly and chest to her back. The hair on his chest rubbed sensuously against her back. Louise reached a hand back over her shoulder and grasped at Phil’s shoulder as she moaned heavily. The contractions did not slow. Dan kissed both of their shoulders as they moved nearly out of control in front of him. Louise watched him through dazed eyes. Phil bit into her shoulder again, harder this time. His hands found her breasts beneath her body, and then Louise felt Dan run his hands over Phil’s wrists and fingers, squeezing slightly. 

The orgasm rolled on and on, and incredibly Louise peaked again, not quite sure if it was a fresh one or simply the second wave of delight, the girthiness of his male shaft pressing everywhere, but most especially that anterior wall and the rough bundle of nerves there. Phil’s hands reached farther down again and rubbed her clit in tight, fast circles. Dan squeezed her breasts from beneath. Louise squeaked and then cried out, “Oh God, oh God!” Her sensitive nipples drove heat down her torso. 

Her orgasm wasn’t stopping, and Louise had a wild moment to think that she would just melt away into a puddle of flesh. The first orgasm, so long ago, had been a release of sexual tension and building lust from the first flush of desire, but this one was the result of a low-burning from much entry and blood in all her body, and it was powerful.

When Louise actually felt it diminish somewhat, Phil’s hips jerked several times and he groaned loudly into her shoulder. He sank against her as she felt the warm fill. He came to a slow shuddering stop atop her, and Dan took his hands away from both of them for a moment, letting them catch their breaths and lessen their sensitivity. Louise settled down slowly, relaxing, and exhaled with a moan into Dan’s stomach.

When Louise could finally move, she nudged Phil with one thigh back to the empty part of the bed. Phil mumbled lowly and dragged himself off, withdrawing from her with a wet sound. Louise would have been embarrassed about that sound, but she couldn’t feel her toes and her fingers were made of soft clay. All of her skin was warm and tingling. Dan whispered something in her ear, but she ignored him and his stupid phrase. Phil chortled as he tumbled away.

Phil rolled off and over, still gasping a bit, and Dan slid out from under her to lay on the other side. Louise struggled to roll over to her back and finally gave up, curling on her side, cheek pressed to the bed. Dan leaned down and kissed the top of Louise’s breast. Phil half-turned and kissed her between the shoulders. 

Her toes on one side just barely scraped the floor since Phil had gone from her. As she felt the final warm contractions completely subside at last, she said weakly to the both of them, “That’s it. I’m done. No more for Louise.” Dan smiled at her from a few inches away, while she heard Phil take a deep breath behind her.

Phil held the condom as he removed it and then pinched it shut to toss it into the bin. Dan didn’t say anything, just basked in his own post-session glow. Louise lifted her head as much as she could and looked over at both of them on either side. Dan had been recovering longer, so his skin was a warm golden pink, but Phil’s chest and belly were still red with exertion and his sweat hadn’t yet dried. Louise stretched and felt soreness pinch down her spine into her hips. The bed stank of sweat and sex.

Sleep tried to steal away through the three of them. Phil snuggled against her hip and threw a hand over her bum. Dan sighed deeply and rested his knees against her hip. Louise cupped her hands beneath her face, a corner of the sheet curled up beneath her shoulder, and started to drift.


	13. Chapter 13

Dan suddenly shook his head, rolled out of bed and stood up on swaying legs. Louise blinked rapidly up at him a few times. From the other side, Phil groaned. Dan ran a hand through his messy mop of curling hair and reached a hand down for Louise. She struggled up and decided at the last moment to take the sheet with her. Now they were close to being done, her self-consciousness, too long abandoned, returned with sharp spikes. Dan reached over and flipped on the overhead light. The candles and amber lamp were reduced to flickers as the room was washed in bright white. Phil threw his arm over his eyes, shaking his head. 

“C’mon, you lot,” Dan said. “Let’s get cleaned up and go to Phil’s bed before we decide, _fuck it_ , and sleep in our own disgusting rank.” He kissed Louise on the top of her head, and she smiled at him. Phil made small protesting noises as he shrank away from the overhead light. Dan batted him with one of the extra pillows and pulled at both of Phil’s hands. He stood quickly after.

They walked out of the room in a slow, shuffling procession. Each person was moving gingerly, and Louise smiled when all three of them winced at the same time. “We’ve been good and thoroughly ridden,” Louise said. 

Dan laughed. 

“Speak for yourself,” Phil replied and curled his arms around his chest.

Dan narrowed those eyes at him, gave him a look, and then said softly, “As though you don’t know the feeling.” Louise shook her head at their casual banter, and the ache in her heart was deeper than any ache in her body. She missed this. This, the quiet easy repertoire between two people, that flowed beyond sex and into intimacy.

Louise took her chance to go away and give them a private moment. “I’m off to the loo,” she said as she ducked out of their line toward Phil’s door. Dan nodded and waved her away, and Phil stopped to watch her trail the sheet down the hall.

Louise felt positively decadent, post-pleasure haze and all, and her limbs were heavy with exhaustion and satisfaction. Down the stairs, she dragged the sheet into the tiny space like a toga and quickly urinated. She wiped thoroughly with loo paper afterward and quickly checked to see if the IUD was disturbed. She had never been with two men within minutes of each other, and there had been a lot of play around her mound at various times. If she contracted a urinary tract infection, it might be twice as bad. Louise grimaced at a member of One Direction and tried to put that thought out of her mind. Satisfied that she was stretched and still swollen, but nothing major was out of place, Louise patted herself dry and hoped it would serve to remind her in a week.

When she came back up to the hall, she caught Dan ducking his head back into Phil’s bedroom just as she made the landing. Walking slowly, she saw that he had already blown out the candles and turned off the music in his room. Peering in from the hallway, Louise saw their clothes left scattered around the floor in there. The bed was a mess of pillows. The fitted sheet was hanging on to one last corner stubbornly.

Louise looked to the other bedroom and saw that Phil was just climbing into bed, already dressed in Star Wars pajama pants and a t-shirt. Louise walked into the room, her toes sinking into the shag rug. Dan stood across from the shaded window and was wiping his body down with a cloth soaked in water. Dan partially turned away from her, and Louise smirked. “You were literally inside me half an hour ago,” she reminded him. Her voice sounded rough from her earlier moaning. She sounded as though she’d had a sore throat for a day or two.

“Fine,” Dan said over his shoulder, “drop the sheet.”

She pressed her lips together. “Check. And mate.”

Louise did drop the sheet then and quickly washed herself off with water from the basin and a clean cloth. The water was room temperature, it felt good against the back of her neck and down her limbs, and Louise felt positively radiant with health and glow afterwards. Patting herself dry with one of the thick towels, she watched Dan surreptitiously from the corner of her eye, as water dripped and ran before he could catch it down the long line of his thigh to his knee. Her light gray t-shirt went over her head quickly. Dan pulled on a pair of boxers. 

When they were done, they stopped and looked at each other for a moment there at the end of Phil’s bed. Dan swallowed. Louise contemplated the space available to them and thought that they would have to cuddle up. The office spare bed was at least all hers, and Dan appeared to be thinking the same about his bed, even with the dirty sheets. It was Phil’s voice that interrupted them. “Get in bed, you two,” he muttered sleepily from his side of the bed, “and turn off the light.” 

Louise walked to the bed and snuggled into the center against Phil’s back. He was already turned to his stomach, one arm wrapped around the pillow beneath his head, and she tried to get as close to the center as possible. Dan turned off the overhead light and then the only light was the glow from the windows and a bit from a small nightlight in the corner. Louise felt her eyes adjust to the darkness as she kissed Phil’s shoulder and he threw his arm over her chest and beneath her ribs in response. He chuckled into her shoulder, moved the pillow so his cheek rested against it, pillow under one arm and Louise’s torso wrapped in the other arm, and then he promptly fell back into a half-sleep of drowsy slumber.

Louise yawned, the muscles in her jaw cracking. Now that she was here, Phil’s bed was so comfortable. They’d had a new mattress for Phil, Louise remembered. All her aches and pains were disappearing into the hazy hinterland of sleep. Louise yawned. She suddenly thought, what if Dan’s room is the sex dungeon? But then Dan’s weight dipped to the other side. He snuggled on his back beneath the duvet and moved one of Phil’s pillows in a diamond beneath his head, leaned up a little on the headboard. Louise moved all her sore limbs from one side to the other, so she was facing him as the quiet night invaded her body and mind. Phil kept his arm around her and pulled slightly, then relaxed. 

“Well,” Dan said timidly, his voice quiet in the darkness, “how do you like your decision now?”

“Good,” Louise murmured. She kissed his arm just above the elbow, and he bumped his skin back against her lips gently. “Good decision. I liked it very well. 10/10, would recommend.” Phil’s quick sharp bark of laughter felt good on her shoulder. She massaged him between the shoulder blades.

For a long time, as Phil sank deeper into sleep, they quietly rested. The three of them smelled of the fabric softener used in the towels, but every so often, one of them would shift and the faint scent of sex would tickle Louise’s nose. She looked forward to a full bath in the morning. Her limbs tingled as she relaxed into Phil’s bed. “Is your room the sex dungeon?” whispered Louise suddenly and boldly, head turned toward Dan.

“Jesus on a raft, I wish.”

Louise struggled up out of sleep lingering on the edge of her vision. Another question had been weighing on her. “When you said, others--” whispered Louise. “That I’m not the first?”

Dan crossed his legs beneath the covers and tossed his arm over his head. “We don’t do it often,” he sighed sleepily. As his body settled deeper into the covers, Dan stretched and yawned, “There was a guy in Spain once.” He peeked at her from the corner of his eye and muttered slyly, “A couple in Greece.” 

Louise frowned, snuffled her nose against the pillow, and then her eyes widened. They had gone to Greece the previous year with -- Dan saw her astonishment and nodded. Louise felt her blush creep down her cheeks to her chest. She was shocked. Dan sank deeper into the covers, and said, “She was in total control of three men. It was an incredible site to behold. Different from this. More--” he hesitated, tilted his head, “more blatantly dominant.” 

Dan’s gaze drifted to the ceiling, seeing beyond the walls of this room, while Louise buried her face into the pillow and watched him drift away on a haze. “More sexual. More pain. God, that woman-- she knew how to control all three of us. Saved the biggest portion of herself for him but both Phil and I got off just watching her command the room.”

“Not more pleasure, though,” murmured Dan and leaned over and kissed her shoulder, bit her softly. “All pleasure is the same, but different, and I can’t think that it was more pleasurable than this is.” Louise snorted and smiled.

Phil turned in his sleep and buried his head in her other shoulder, muttering suddenly, “Hedgehogs! _No!_ ” His legs kicked wildly under the covers. Louise reached up her hand and lightly stroked his arm as he tightened his grip. He settled back down and wriggled closer. Louise turned her face to his head and kissed him just above the temple. He sighed heavily and moaned, then snuggled against her again. 

When Dan peeked at her from the corner of his eye, he murmured, “Would not have suspected, would you?”

Louise blinked twice. “You two are extremely persuasive,” she asserted. Dan snorted and chuckled, and then settled down again, and as his breathing lengthened, Louise closed her eyes and let her mind drift. “But keep me on the discrete side, too, yeah?”

“No worries,” said Dan, and yawned with one hand curled over his half-open mouth. Louise was near enough to see the dimple deepen in his cheek. “We talk about those who say that we can talk about them, and leave the rest out of it.”

In the way of it, she was awake before she knew she’d been asleep, and then only halfway as her body was rocked and moved back and forth. In the dim recess of her mind, Louise thought _again? So soon?_ , but it was Phil struggling to disentangle himself from her. Louise blinked at the ceiling. There was a loud sound of deep rumbling. With a start, Louise realized that it was Dan next to her, the pillow having slipped from beneath him, neck curved, his head tipped back and his mouth slightly open. She lifted her chin from the pillow. The rumbling sound was so loud next to her ear. She could see his lower lip fluttering with each exhale.

Phil’s arm reached across her and shook Dan. Dan’s snores stopped with a snort. Dan blinked rapidly a few times, and then grabbed the pillow to stuff it back beneath his neck. “Sorry, sorry,” he murmured, and then he settled down and his eyes drifted shut. 

For several long moments Louise stared at him, and then turned to Phil in astonishment. His smirking smile was right there just beyond the edge of her hair. He whispered, “ _That’s why he’ll always have his own bedroom._ ” Louise smiled broadly and patted his shoulder. Together they snuggled again, Louise turning her head to Dan’s open shoulder, and Phil laying his head on the soft swell of her breast, his arm snaking around her ribs again.

The next time she was awakened, the duvet was quickly folded back around her and the pillow was brought beneath her cheek, and she fell back asleep without realizing it wasn’t a dream. It turned out to be only a light doze. Her internal clock told her that it was morning. She tossed and turned a bit until a loud car horn fully woke her. 

When Louise sat up in bed, she was alone.


	14. Chapter 14

Louise rubbed her eyes sleepily. The bedroom was much like it had been in the night, the bowls with the white handcloth rags drying on their sides, damp towels thrown over the footboard, and two empty hollows on either side of her where the men had lain. Louise yawned, despite having just woken. Her eyes felt gritty as she looked around. Then Louise rocked from side to side in an attempt to crawl out of bed and stand up. As she clambered out of bed, her thighs protested. They twinged viciously as she stood. Louise felt like she’d done a hundred squats at the gym. In a way, she supposed she had. Louise fought the urge to wrap the duvet protectively around herself and drag it out of Phil’s bedroom. Instead she grabbed the end of her shirt and tucked it down as close to her knees as possible. She was very aware that she was both braless and pantyless beneath.

From far away, water began to pour through the pipes. Someone had turned on the shower. 

Louise padded down the hallway barefoot, peeking into the lounge just as someone rattled the kettle in the kitchen. When she turned that way, an upper cabinet door squeaked open, and someone in Star Wars pajamas leaned up into the cupboard. Phil’s voice asked, “Good morning. Would you like a bit of coffee?”

“No thanks and good morning,” answered Louise, “and can I have tea? And I’ve got to go to the loo, so I’ll be back for it, yeah?” Phil leaned around the open door and grinned at her, one hand waving her away as cups clattered to their countertop. 

Louise went quickly to the little water closet. Through the wall, she could hear Dan’s low humming as he washed and splashed inside the shower stall. Louise tiptoed back up the stairs and saw Phil pouring hot water into a waiting cup. He nudged it toward her as he fixed his own, unscrewing sugar and drawing a sugary thumb into his mouth just after he opened it. Louise slipped around him and found the milk in the fridge, dolloped a little into her tea. She tried not to think that she'd wanted to suck his fingers last night. The entire previous night was a bubble, as this time in this kitchen was a bubble. Louise wasn't sure if Phil thought about her differently now that they'd been in bed. She thought briefly of Dan in the shower, water sluicing down his back and bum and over his knees, and she took a deep breath. It was all the same as any other night she'd spent in their flat. It was all different, too. 

Phil leaned against the counter, blew into his coffee, and looked at her over the top of the mug. Louise smiled at him hesitantly as she sipped her tea. Finally, Phil said, “Did you sleep well?” It was such an innocuous question. Louise smiled and remembered that normally, had she slept in the office, she would be bouncing in, full of plans, asking questions about what they would do today or telling them her plans for being in the city. Now Phil was gently probing around her edges, testing to see if she was nervous or uncomfortable. It probably meant he was just as nervous as she.

So she raised her chin and smiled broadly at him. “I had a wonderful night’s sleep, that new mattress is really lovely.”

“Oh yeah,” said Phil, and crossed his legs as he leaned against the lower cabinetry. Louise squeezed herself against the other side of the galley kitchen. “Pillow top.” His brows drew together as he sipped the coffee again. 

“So what do we have on tap for today, Phil?” Louise asked curiously.

“I was thinking, maybe we could go to the shops at Seven Sisters this morning and afternoon,” Phil shrugged. “Have a bit of a haul and walk around some. Maybe a bit of an orgy later on.” He watched her slyly over the coffee, sipped again, and quickly added, “We have some really neat Netflix queues set. Watch a little telly tonight.”

“Ooh,” Louise tilted her head, “I like that bit.”

“What, the haul? Knew you would,” Phil dropped the cup a bit and cupped one elbow with his hand. When he rocked back and forth and looked at Louise full in the face, his wild bed hair and dark glasses were too earnest for her, and she burst out laughing. Phil laughed and covered his mouth with the cup. Quietly Louise reached over and clinked her mug with his. Together they drank in companionable silence. It was... different, Louise decided, awkward in a good way, but they were still friends. She hoped the same was true of Dan.

Phil looked around. “We’ve got to get some breakfast on. Are you fine with cereal, crumpets?”

Louise stopped for a moment, her nails tapping the side of her mug quickly. She studied Phil as he looked to her and then to the counter again, mentally putting together their meal. “Phil,” she began, “before you get started on that, umm-- uh--” He stopped and she shifted from one foot to another. She was very aware that her gray shirt dropped just above her dimpled knees. Her braid was completely gone, the black ribbon tied and dangling from one long blond curl, the rest of it loose in waves around her shoulders. She looked a mess. Louise shook her head and raised her gaze to his gentle return, and forced herself to ask, “Um, before the day gets started, I wanted to... Phil, may I--”

“Rip the goddam plaster off, Louise,” Phil answered. She slapped a hand over her forehead and chuckled quietly. Phil set the empty cup on the counter.

“Phil, I wanted to ask something,” Louise said, “and can you be completely honest with me? I mean, if you want to answer when Dan’s here, that’s fine. It’s all good. Just, I need an honest answer.” Phil’s brows drew together briefly and his smile was both confused and aggravated, so Louise just blurted it out. It was better to have it out than have it in. “Phil, _why me?_ ” 

“Huh?”

“Why me?” she repeated. Louise stared into the milky depths of her tea and mumbled, “Why did you approach me?” She looked at him from beneath the curl of blonde hair that fell across her face. “I mean, you know so many other women, and they’re all able to do the same thing I did last night-- why me, Phil? Why’d you and Dan ask me?”

She couldn’t keep talking around the painful squeeze in her throat. Louise watched him lean forward on one hip and then frown at her, look away toward the lounge and then she realized that he was looking at the space where Dan was probably showering, down the stairs and through the walls, and she regretted asking. Louise said, “Sorry, sorry, sorry... I shouldn’t have asked. Until Dan got out of the bath.” Louise snorted softly and said under her breath, “Maybe not even at all.” Phil stared at his feet. If this was all still meant as a joke on her expense, Louise would curl up and recover for a week in her house, and she may never come here, ever again.

When Louise made to move out of the kitchen across the lounge, Phil reached and caught her arm. She gasped a bit, stepped back and drew her arm out of his grip without looking at him. From the corner of her eye, Phil’s mouth opened and then shut once. Finally, he said quietly, “Did you know he’s lost two stone?”

“Who?”

“Who? The Prime Minister. _Dan,_ that’s who,” answered Phil. He motioned around in a mimic of quick movement and said, “Rehearsals and the tour, even eating all that on-the-road food, Dan has lost two stone since last summer.”

“My God, from _where_?” Louise was genuinely surprised.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Phil scoffed quietly. He looked at her and Louise stopped frowning. She watched him grip the counter behind him and lean forward slightly on his arms. Phil said, “I don’t care, I love him either way. But he cares. He cares quite a lot.”

Louise shook her head. “So what does that have to do with me?”

“Well, he’s very sensitive about it, and he’s so cute, yeah, but not very confident. And me-- well, as for me,” Phil put one hand up a few inches in front of his face, gesturing it quickly up and down, “I know what I am.” Just the movement confused Louise. Phil was extremely desirable, but he motioned to himself as though he had something greatly wrong with him. Dan was _cute_? Dan was fucking gorgeous, and Phil was fucking gorgeous, and Louise thought idly that neither of them seemed to believe it. Phil continued, “And we hadn’t done this, we didn’t start doing things like this, until recently. I think it’s a way for us to reaffirm that there’s -- you know, desire out there, for us both, you know?”

Louise stared at him in shock. “Half the internet loves you,” she stuttered out finally. “You could go to any bar in London, and pick up whoever you liked.”

“Yeah, people who don’t know us,” Phil replied. He rubbed one socked foot over the top of the other one and grunted low under his breath. “It wasn’t like we were hoping that you and Matt would break up. But when you did, Dan mentioned this-- um, this whole idea to me. We’ve watched in the past few months, Louise--” he sighed heavily and the truth of his earnest expression caused Louise to shrink back into the refrigerator -- “you’ve been dating more often. Matt’s been out of the picture for over a year. And you’re you, Louise! Those big pretty eyes, those apple cheeks, that big wide mouth, that ass that I like to see jiggle and wiggle, and those breasts that Dan wants to wallow in all night long. Finally, Dan and I agreed .. Now or never. Now or never.” 

Phil smoothed a hand through his messy hair and blew out a breath, lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. He looked at her sheepishly as he said, “We wanted to snap you up before it was too late. We didn’t know if you’d say yes if you were in a new relationship. So, that’s why. You’re a very sexy woman, Louise, and we didn’t want to lose it and regret it.”

Louise sighed and leaned against the fridge. He’d actually said _regret_. All those things she thought they had purposefully overlooked in her so they could have a partner, and it turned out that they were hoping she’d say yes before another man came into her life. She stared at her pink-painted toes, clenched them into the cold tile for a moment, and tried to stop her eyes from welling up. “That’s why,” she said incredulously, “it was me because -- you were afraid you’d wait too long, and miss your chance?”

“Oh, of course,” Phil shrugged. He rubbed a hand on his jaw, and the scratchy sound reminded Louise that he hadn’t showered or shaved yet. She blinked up at him. “Why’s that so shocking to you?” He didn’t seem to be making sport of her question, and Louise shook her head, didn’t answer. 

She sighed heavily and then smiled tremulously at him. “Thank you for telling me,” she said and touched his arm. Phil trailed his fingers down and wrapped his hand around hers to squeeze it. He seemed to want more explanation, and Louise couldn’t just blurt out that she thought they’d had to overlook so many things, when it truly sounded as though they felt they hadn’t had to overlook anything. Louise sighed. “I was just wondering, because I didn’t know why. I mean, I just wanted to know.” She blinked at their linked fingers. 

“Yeah,” Phil said, “ask Dan why you. He always told me that we had to ask sooner, rather than later, and then even while you were here, he was a little paranoid. He was so scared last night--” Phil barked out a small laugh, his belly quickly shaking and his fingers tightening in hers as he leaned in conspiratorially “-- he thought you might crawl out the bathroom window when you went to the loo after.”

“ _What?!_ ” Louise laughed. She rolled her eyes. “What did he think I would do, ninja roll out of your second story toilet window? _Bye boys, thanks for all the sex, text me later!_ ” Louise mocked. Suddenly Phil was laughing and leaned against the door frame, shaking his head. Louise laughed helplessly and leaned against him, and for several long moments they shared the space. Louise felt the unspoken tension disappearing, the hidden fears burning away, as morning fog burns away with the heat of the day.

Finally, Louise wiped her eyes with one hand, and then disentangled herself from Phil’s hand. “Oh God,” she moaned a bit. “I wish I’d known all this last night. I would have enjoyed myself a little bit more.” Her thoughts turned to thick thighs, heavy breasts, a curved belly pooch. And these two men -- these two gorgeous, attractive, funny men -- thought _they_ were chasing _her_ to satisfy their desires.

“What, pretend to be a ninja?” Phil leaned back a little bit and rocked on his heels.

“No,” Louse replied, knowing that he truly had no idea what she was talking about, “maybe enjoyed myself thoroughly in other ways. But be a little less... you know, wouldn’t be so worried about things.” Louise glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and said, “Although I would’ve scared the pants off him if I’d known Dan was worried about the window in the loo.” 

Phil rubbed the corner of one eye. “Good,” said Phil finally. “Enjoy yourself. I could not stand it if I knew you didn’t enjoy yourself as much as you could. And I had plans for this afternoon’s orgy that will curl your toes.”

“Still on,” Louise said and patted his arm.

Phil smiled, then leaned down and kissed her temple. When he leaned back, he said, “Good, let’s go inform Mr. Ninja that we’re still on for the day, and tonight, and barring unforeseen circumstances or alien invasion of London on this day of all days, tomorrow. And we can get in line for showers and the sink.”

She followed him out of the kitchen and down the stairs. As he opened the door, drifting clouds of steam came out, and she heard Dan’s outraged cry within. The water shut off. She said to Phil, “I’m glad that we’re okay. All okay with this.”

“Don’t worry,” Phil answered, “the worst thing this morning is that Dan probably used all the hot water.” Smiling, Louise stepped into the humid room as Dan protested again loudly.


	15. Coda

Time passes, as time always does.

Dan and Phil collab with Louise again, four times actually, on their respective channels over six years. There are challenge collabs, a rather stressful but fun board game on the gaming channel (Louise maintains that Dan is a sore loser for years afterward), one actual “my friend does my makeup” collab that both opens a discussion for nonbinary self-love and satisfies legions of fans who want to see Dan Howell with painted fingernails. If they stand a little closer than normal or lean in casually, the viewers chalk it up to their well-known friendship.

There is another encounter of an intimate variety, far away from London in the hills of Vermont, in the upper Northeast of the United States. There, in a rustic cabin, the men introduce Louise to another friend who they’d met in Spain. Louise is both amused and aroused by their sexual adventures that weekend. At one point, completely excluded from the activities, but with a close view from her lounger chair, knees tucked beneath her chin as she watches in delight, she sees the wild sexual tastes of three men on each other. It is different from what she experienced with only Dan and Phil. They are more open with each other, more bold. Louise feels for the first time like a third wheel (or in this case, a fourth wheel). When they pull her back in, seeking more arousal and stimulation, Louise is a bit put off by their friend, who completely ignores her or handles her a little too roughly too soon. He commands, rather than asks, and by the end of this encounter, she is both angry at him and proud to know that Phil and Dan are more than a little bit put out by his rudeness. Louise gets to see them kick the man forcibly out of the cabin halfway through the night. She is, as always, thrilled to be holding the hands of men who love her. 

After that experience, she gently rebuffs it the single time it comes into conversation, as her heart has been captured by another, and the opportunity stops coming up. But Louise staunchly defends Phil and Dan to anyone who questions the nature of their relationship. 

Love comes and goes, as it always does. Louise has capital-L Loves and lower-case loves, and additional partners over a decade of life. She enjoys her body and her heart in her monogamy. Her dreams are never of the multiple partner variety. When it does arise, it is a slow burning, but it elicits longing rather than permanence in her heart. 

Her YouTube channel slowly dies over a decade. So many people move on. For Louise, it is, not surprisingly, movement into fashion and beauty. She maintains a relationship with several commercial partners and becomes involved more with design. Eventually an agent gives her most personal designs a chance. Louise Pentland becomes known as the best British wedding designer during the retro-roaring ‘20s. Designing wedding dresses for all brides, of all sizes, of all sexualities, tastes, and budgets, gives her a caress of the romantic as well as a strong business. When she herself marries for the second time, it is a backyard affair in a custom dress of her own design, giggling with her maid of honor -- a gangly Darcy -- and an audience filled with family, friends, and old colleagues. Dan and Phil are there, dressed stylishly in dark suits, clinking their champagne glasses with Louise late in the night as they dance around a large pergola. Louise gets ridiculously drunk and throws up in the begonias. Dan holds her hair back.

She is actually wonderfully surprised that they have come to the wedding. Their reconciliation is still so new. 

In the years after their second amorous encounter in Vermont, Dan and Phil’s relationship had strained to the breaking point. No one asks why. Sometimes it just happens. Dan moves out of the flat. Phil lets the London apartment lease lapse and buys a home in a gated community in Woodside Park, close to a tube station but with large trees and a great big backyard, and audible sirens only once in a blue moon. He gets a beagle within six months. Dan moves to a penthouse overlooking the Thames, sleek and modern, where the windows cast light across the city. 

They seem happier than they have been in a while, maintain Dan and Phil Games jointly, and begin slowly to announce collabs by moving away from “with Phil” to “with @AmazingPhil.” Phil retires @AmazingPhil, and then Dan moves on to collabs with “Phil Lester.” They both casually date other people, but no one ever moves in.

The fandom with a “ph” collectively loses their shit. 

Louise and others quietly support them, but stay out of the way, until over two years after the home moves -- when Dan’s Tweets begin to spiral into full-on depression (when he remembers to Tweet at all) and Phil is noticeably teary-eyed in every gaming collab, spending long periods of silent contemplation when Dan speaks, staring at him from the corner of his gaze. 

Louise calls an emergency conference of several other colleagues and friends. They stage an intervention, encourage them to cut the cords completely if it’s never going back to what it was and cannot shape into something livable for the two of them. Phil and Dan have endured at least one breakup, as some remember the sniping comments directed at each other, memories of living in wartime. But this breakup is different -- they are older, more mature. They don’t economically depend on each other to keep the radio show afloat. The tour and tour promotion are done. They can become friends, or they can become former lovers, but the women tell them that they cannot stay in this hell of a limbo, where it’s known widely among the bars of London that you can sleep with one of them but never, ever go home with him.

Louise uses her own second relationship, at that time moving through courtship and into the planning stages of a wedding, as fodder for this discussion -- she and Matt are now friends, keeping their heads above the memories of their former love, raising Darcy together without the constant tug of “what if.” She wants the same for them.

At Louise’s wedding, she sees Phil and Dan circling each other again, cautiously. She is unsure if this is the continuation of their long friendship with different caveats or if they may drift further apart, and become a sepia memory of each other, a former relationship cooled to a name on the Christmas card list and rarely-posting Facebook friends, while new relationships turn new ground in their hearts. 

Then Louise notices that Dan and Phil stop using some social media for about a month. 

When Dan puts his place on the market, and Scooter the beagle is shown in the background of one of his danisnotinteresting videos, a small corner of the Internet holds its breath. When Dan reveals his new bedroom in a main channel video -- the third “tour” video he’s ever posted -- in the last frames, he opens the door to dramatically reveal Phil standing outside in a Woodside Park hallway. Phil drolly sips his coffee and turns on his heel, saying nothing. Louise’s squeals wakes up her husband from a dead sleep at 11:30 at night.

Eventually Dan retires @danisnotonfire. He becomes a producer for BBC3, helming documentaries, including one rather interesting exploration of the role of philosophy in modern life. He is recognized by several mental health services in the UK and America for his pieces on understanding healthy mental self exploration versus asking for help when depression and anxiety become self-harming. Dan prints and keeps every single letter written to him where the writer decided against suicide. He keeps them in a small book in his office for the rest of his life, and sometimes, when people ask him what he’s most proud of, he lists names rather than events. 

The same week that Louise is putting on her first bridal runway show in Paris, she flips on the telly in the hotel room and finds that Phil Lester has been named chief nature correspondent for BBC1. Phil creates and designs everything from brief runs about trendy exotic animals for online broadcast to entire series with the cooperation of the King’s royal institutes to teach children about the importance of the natural world. One of Phil’s pieces on puppies surviving the horrors of puppy mills eventually wins a Paul Foot award. Phil hides at the back of the group when they are giving their acceptance speeches, until a familiar loud voice from the crowd shouts, “ _Philip Michael Lester!_ ” and he is forced to come forward to give a speech.

Louise, shockingly to all but her, gives birth to another child. Phil and Dan come into the hospital room to greet her sweaty mess of a self with kisses, flowers, and assurances that she has never looked better. Many years after he shared a photo of Dan holding a baby, Phil shares another photo of Dan holding Louise’s new son, a small burrito that stares at him with squinty unfocused eyes as Dan smiles down at him. This photo is broadcast to a significantly shrunken online fan base, but still, enough of them bob to the surface to remark about 2022.

Louise and her husband vacation in the lake district every year. Darcy begins secondary school, and “the baby” begins preschool. 

Another terrorist attack in London sends everyone scrambling to contact those people they love. For Louise, it is her sister and father, and then her friends -- including Phil and Dan, who assure her that they weren’t near the tube stations when they shut down. In the background Phil interrupts Dan and she hears Dan’s irritated snort as he tries to steer the conversation back to the attacks. Phil shouts nearby, “Stop blocking me, you Sith lord!” and Dan’s silence evokes his bland expression, that look in her mind’s imagination that clearly says, _do you hear this? this is what I must deal with!_ When Dan whispers, “I am your sister, Ben,” she clearly hears Phil’s bubbly laughter in response.

Louise rows out into the center of the lake after supper in the district sometimes. As the stars begin to appear on the warm summer nights, she breathes deeply a few times. She lays back. Her long hair pools around her head, and her fingers trail in the water. Sometimes, alone, she remembers what it was like to be with Dan and Phil during that first weekend. The memory is a sweet soother on her holiday.

Her hand in the water is wet. They were so nervous, as was she. She was so shocked that they had asked her to do this with them. What she was most surprised about, which she later thought obsessively over, was that all the reasons she could muster shouted _despite, despite, despite_ turned out to be their whispers in her ear of _because, because, because_. It changed so many things in her life. 

Long ago, she wondered why. _Why?_ Why would Dan and Phil ask her for this intimacy? Didn’t they see her as someone’s mum, an Internet funny mum, not as a woman? Now, Louise sees that she should have never doubted herself in that way, as though she used them. It was wrong of her to judge them so harshly. Instead they chose her to be that person for them in that time. Love is best shared. She knows that she is happy with her singular husband, and her joy at the memory of sharing her body has been neither registered as sin nor pressed into shamed silence. 

The water is cold, but she never displaces more than the weight of her own hand. Finally, at last, sighing, she lifts herself from the bottom of the boat and shakes her hand off. She sucks one long finger, swallowing the freshwater from the lake for a moment as the sun disappears at last over the horizon. Then Louise lifts the oars and begins to row back to shore in the twilight, the water lapping softly against the side of her little hull in the light of the emerging stars.


	16. Author's Notes - postscript

I can claim to know nothing about Dan Howell, Phil Lester, or Louise Pentland's personal sexuality. So I will say this about various **spoilery** notes in the text:

  * Two forms of birth control were used. One for birth control regarding pregnancy, and one for STI control. Remember kids, it's best to double up when you can!! 
  * Louise, Phil, and Dan in the story seem to be working through some self-love and self-esteem issues. However, that is not why they participate in this threesome. Their psychology is not what causes their sexual expression in the form of group sex. Sex helped the characters understand their own self-love more positively. I will say this to anyone who may be thinking: _nobody's gonna ever want me, I'm too [insert noun, verb, adjective, adverb.]_ **Keep your heart and your mind and your will open to the world.** There's a butt for every chair. Maybe the real people (the real YouTubers) have worked that out in the past. Maybe each of these three individuals are still working it out today. It's not for us to say. But I liked writing fictional characters whose involvement in the threesome, was funny, nervous, and ultimately self-affirming. 
  * I don't know if Phil Lester and Dan Howell are doing the do in real life. Maybe they've always been best friends, were boyfriends once who broke up and remained good friends, guided each other in explorations of their sexuality with no final endgame whatsoever, or they are simply each other's non-sexual life partner. Ultimately, I hope that the real life person, of which each of these characters was based off, is having happy, healthy orgasms with the person they most desire to have happy, healthy orgasms with, or alternatively, if they don't desire to have orgasms with another person right now, I hope they're not having any orgasms with another person right now. Thus ends that speculation. 
  * Water is primeval. I think that's why it carried through as a theme. Spot all the references! 
  * Alpha males are over-rated, kids. Betas can be aggressive and sexually challenging, and still retain that core of surprisingly practical creativity that draws you in the first place. 
  * Consent is a very big thing. I liked writing the consent scenes, and understanding Dan's panic about taking things too fast and then backpedaling. Note: Louise was not taken in a noncon way in that scene. It's important to distinguish heat of passion and consent. Always be with someone who asks for continued consent, usually enthusiastic consent, sometimes simply a nod or smile or time spent waiting while you get your shit together. Consent is the loveliest of all sexual activities. 
  * Phil Lester can get it. If he were to show up outside my front door, I would literally look at my child and say, "Tell your daddy I'll be back in about four, possibly five, hours." And I'd just go. Dan's lovely and cute and everything, but Phil Lester can get it. Get. It. 
  * I happened to post this one on the morning that Sprinkle of Chatter video Life Update - He Dumped Me was posted. Goddammit! I had a whole bullet prepared about how this story was set in a world where Louise didn't post anything about a new boyfriend, just to keep the story line consistent, and at risk of eliciting an "ewww" factor in my own mind while I was writing it, where Louise's new boyfriend came into the picture in a fictional timeline of 2017. First of all, who dumps Louise? Jesus Christ. Secondly, she does have fans who write threesome fics on public websites, so I can understand a little about any life that he wasn't prepared for. But still.... I was really sorry to see that she had broken up with the new man in her life. Here's hoping, with cheers and beers, that Louise won't look for love for very long!! With her personality and kindness, anybody would be lucky to snap her up. 
  * Addendum: I keep finding words out of place and in the wrong tense. So excuse me as I meticulously comb over this story for the next few weeks and correct tenses/phrases. The dangers of working without a beta are legion. LEGION. 



Thanks for reading this far!! 


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